Cursed

You don’t go there on your own. Certainly not if it is getting dark. Even in the middle of the day you will probably want someone with you, just in case you hear her voice. In summer it looks a lovely meadow. Ox-eye daisies, cats’ ears, cornflower, cow parsley, the odd poppy, gentle grasses, swaying on the breeze like ripples on a lake. It’s so deceptive. The path along two sides, then skirting the beech wood and on to the farm. Untidy cluster, the house now empty, mossy roof, gutters dripping, still for sale, offers invited. The barn just a shell with a few rotting bales inside. Broken, rusting farm equipment like instruments of torture. Somewhere, something flapping impatiently.

She was just thirteen: she’d had her birthday only days before. “You’re an official teenager now”, her father had told her. No party, no friends round for tea, just the four of them according to what was written later. The farm a long way from town and anyway she was a country girl, unlike others. A loner. She looked like her father. Same long face, narrow mouth, rather small eyes. Pretty enough though.

It was Ollie who found her, twisted and broken like a poacher’s rabbit. For weeks the area was sealed off with that tape. Crime Scene Do Not Cross in bright blue, bending on the breeze. Iron stakes puncturing the ground. A large white tent. Who knows what they really discovered. Ollie is still in treatment. Not round here of course. Not now.

Afterwards, no one ever saw her mother, Linda. Dark and always mysterious. She kept away from all the glare, the appeals, the interviews on the news. Everyone was suspicious. It was Trevor, who usually spoke, his lazy eye wandering almost at random, his quiet voice breaking with distress. Even before he was arrested, there were those who said they knew. Then when he was released without charge, the wagging tongues did not change. They wouldn’t serve him in the Spar. Nor Linda. Some still say it was her; others reckon they both had a hand in it. Mrs McCulloch, from the bakery, said she always knew something bad would happen there. She’s got a story about everyone.

After Trevor was released, the police said they wanted information about two men seen in the area that day. Something about a Transit van. No one round here remembers seeing it.

The three of them moved away. Is it Luton, or Northampton? Somewhere like that, anyway.

Later one of the papers said Linda was a practising witch. Black magic, things seen at night, naked bodies round a fire. Others have seen some TV thing about unsolved mysteries. And some bloke in the Scrubs claims it was him. DNA tests say it wasn’t.

Little Robin Tucker was probably first to hear the voice. Two years later it was. He, apple cheeked with freckles, dark, bright squirrel eyes, watering with fear. Said he had heard a scream from where it happened on the path. No one believed him much. Then Lisa Scansfield said she’d heard it in much the same spot. Too tall for her age, too plain for casual romance, she was never one to make things up. Even later a couple from down south somewhere came into the Dog and Duck saying they’d heard a girl crying in what is now called Mandy’s field. They didn’t even know it was where she’d been killed.

That autumn Terry-the-tractor cut the hedge a good two-foot lower all along that corner. No one can hide there now.  Some priest from miles away, near Malvern, came and performed an exorcism. Chanting and the like. White painted wooden cross left where she lay. It stands a bit crooked now, some thin ribbons desperately holding on as a last farewell.

Many have said they still hear screams or groans, or a voice calling and name – could be Ricky, or perhaps Nicky or Dicky. Used to be the police were called. They’ve now got used to all the stories.

Actually, the field was never part of Mallory’s farm. Belongs to the Waterfords. One of their holdings; they’ve land all over the area. On contract mostly. It was used back then. She lay on corn-stubble, the harvest over. Hasn’t had anything on it since. Story goes that even sheep won’t graze there now. You don’t hear bird-song either. Sometimes a crow, perhaps. That’s all. And now, in that corner, the water stands, and not just in the winter. Never used to. Old Angus says it’s her tears.

There’s certainly a curse, but it seems the land will always keep its secrets.