On Potters' Field (Part One)

© 2013 David Jasmin-Green

Claire Grundy took a short cut across Potters' field, a plot of well over a hundred acres that had changed from an expanse of baked clay and scorched grass to a sticky quagmire in the short time since the heavens opened. The brand new yellow and white canvas pumps that her mother had bought her a few days back were ruined, her umbrella was turned inside out by a powerful gust of wind not long after the black, angry thunder-head rolled across an otherwise clear blue sky, and though she hated littering the countryside she had long since abandoned the useless item in the mud because she had several bags of saturated clothes to carry that she had bought in town with her sixteenth birthday money. Claire had only taken her brolly because her mother told her that 'a splash of rain' had been forecast. It had been a scorchingly hot July Saturday in one of those rare English summers when even a drop of rain seemed like an impossibility, but now the rain was pelting down so heavily that she couldn't see where she was going.

“I should be able to see the damned tree by now,” the girl told herself as a furious clap of thunder exploded overhead and she ran blindly on. There was a lone oak in the middle of the field, a huge, gnarled old thing with spreading branches and a hollow trunk that she and her younger brother had played in when they were little as her parents and grandparents had done so before them. She often wondered if the tree had been there as long as the trio of standing stones on the hill less than a quarter of a mile away and the half moon of ancient barrows that surrounded it, though she knew that that was unlikely.

“This is a mighty old landscape,” her grandfather had told her a few months before he was diagnosed with bowel cancer, a merciless monster that had eaten him alive in a little over six months. “Treat it with respect, and in return it will respect you.” Granddad Grundy was buried in the churchyard on the edge of the village in a plot that had been in the family for over two hundred years, right on the edge of Potters' field where he could watch over his beloved Shropshire countryside in spirit.

Thankfully the oak tree came into view through the curtain of relentless rain as Claire clambered down the sodden, slippery slope. She had been told on a number of occasions not to seek shelter under trees during a thunderstorm, but the rain was freezing cold and she was only wearing a tie-dye t shirt and her favourite jeans, which were bright red, she was shivering and she feared she would catch her death if she didn't find shelter soon. Besides, she thought, didn't lightning always seek the highest point? The standing stones were streaked with iron ore, so if lightning struck surely it would strike there.

Before long Claire was curled up in the heart of the oak among crushed beer cans and crisp packets and, no doubt, used condoms. She tapped out her mother's number on the Blackberry that her parents had given her the previous Christmas, she hadn't dared making a call out in the open in case the rain ruined the phone's delicate innards. She didn't expect her mother's phone to ring, she thought the signal would be hopelessly scrambled by the electromagnetic charge in the air, but it did ring and her mother answered almost immediately. “Claire? Where are you, sausage? I'll come and pick you up. I expected you home ages ago, it's absolutely piddling it down! I don't like you going to town on your own, you're only sixteen, but I guess I have to lengthen my apron strings sometime.....”

“Mum, I got off the bus by aunt Mary's house because I fancied a nice walk in the sunshine, the rain started shortly afterwards and the wind wrecked my brolly. I've taken a short cut and I'm -” That was as far as the conversation went because a bolt of lightning struck the tree, severing a branch as thick as a man's chest. Claire knew only darkness and oblivion. For a few seconds her mother heard an angry buzzing like a huge swarm of irate wasps, and then the line went dead and she had no idea where her little girl was.

*************************

“Wake up, man child!” the little brown skinned creature squatting over the girl said, poking her sharply in the ribs. “Your kind don't belong here. Who are you, and why are you dressed so colourfully? You stand out like a flower garden in the wilderness.” Claire screamed as soon as she opened her eyes, but her scream was stifled by the strong, leathery hand that the man-like creature put over her mouth. “Shhh! You mustn't let the others hear you, I doubt if they'll treat you as kindly as I have. I'm a bit of a softie, child, and I only fear adult humans. I mean you no harm, please don't scream, it'll give me a headache. Do you promise to be quiet?” Claire nodded, and the creature slowly removed its hand from here mouth.

“Who are you?” she said, sitting up. “And what are you?”

“I'm a goblin, silly,” the short, stout creature said, watching her with its cat like eyes. “Haven't you ever seen a goblin before? No, obviously not..... This forest is our sovereign territory, or it was until your kind invaded and started chopping down the trees to provide arable land and pasture for their livestock, as if there isn't enough open country already. My name is Thomekin, pleased to meet you. And you are?”

“I'm..... I'm Claire, Claire Grundy,” she said, taking in the thick forest around her. The oak tree had vanished, it was replaced by a stand of tall ash trees surrounded by hazel thickets. The storm had disappeared too, and sunlight dappled the dark, leaf strewn earth where it penetrated the dense green network above. “How did I get here – and where is here, exactly?”

“Here is wherever you started from, Claire, I suppose, only in a different time. This is a magical place, it's a portal, a gateway between many worlds; it always has been and it always will be, and now and then we have visitors from afar. You clearly don't come from the village in the hills over there because you're not dressed in woven woollen cloth and animal hides, and you're not armed with spears and bows and arrows - no, you're not one of those savages, I'm sure of it. Tell me what you were doing before you arrived here, and we'll see if we can get you home one way or another.”

“I was on my way home from town, I'd been to Bridlingham shopping for clothes, but my bags seem to have disappeared. I got off the bus by the reservoir because it was a nice day and I fancied walking the rest of the way to Atherdale, the village where I live. A storm came over and it started to rain really heavily, so I took a short cut across Potters' field to save time because I was cold and wet. I sheltered inside a big hollow oak tree, the only tree in the field so that I could call my mother and cadge a lift, and I'm afraid I don't remember anything after that – my memory stops rather abruptly, and the only thing I can think of is maybe the tree was struck by lightning.”

“You speak in riddles, child, and I don't know the places you mentioned,” Thomekin said, rubbing his almost hairless scalp, scratching his large pointed ears and adjusting his clothing, which was a slightly darker sepia than his oily looking skin. “But that's not unusual on the rare occasions that we have visitors from elsewhere. You mention a lone oak in a field, but if you came from the distant past or future it's unlikely that the same tree exists here and now. Your lightning theory sounds promising, though, electrical storms are very potent things and strange things happen during storms..... Is there anything other landmark close to where you were that you think may have been there a long time?”

“There's a hill with three big standing stones on it with streaks of brown rust a similar colour to your skin, and there are a lot of round, domed barrows around it, old graves.....”

“Aah, I know that place, it's the humans' sacred ground, and it's only a short distance away. Come, child, we'll go there straight away and see if we can cajole the old gods into carrying you home. We have to try to avoid my kinsfolk, though, because most of them don't take kindly to humans – and we also have to avoid humans, because they are suspicious, superstitious and generally rather nasty creatures, and I don't think they'll react much better to you than to me. If we can't figure out a solution to your problem I'll have to take you to see, Grimlen, our seer, but even she isn't overfond of humans so maybe that isn't such a good idea. With a bit of cunning and a hefty dollop of luck, though, that won't be necessary.”