WIDDERSHINS

This lurked in my note book for quite a while, loosely worked out, waiting...

Then I wrote it one day when I looked into the notebook, having forgotten about this idea, and grabbed it. And ran... well, had a short sprint.

I've a feeling that this is infact the prologue to somethign longer. At various times I've tried to expand it, but as yet haven't cracked the bigger plot. Though I've got some of it. Probably more than I'm willing to say right now. But it's bit. Bits and pieces that aren't quite linked. Not yet, but it's coming. It'll keep on percolating until it's ready.

Whether that longer version is prose, is another question. As I write this I'm working on a short script adapting the sotry as it stands. But the longer version could just as easily come out as a script as prose fiction/a novel.



WIDDERSHINS by Neil Snowdon


The little boy woke in darkness.

The house was sleeping, quietly, peacefully. He could feel its heavy, steady breathing, deep and constant pressing against him, rising and falling in the dark. He lay awhile, letting his eyes adjust to the night. A crack of orange split his curtains; the sodium glow of the world outside. He blinked, and breathed with the house. In the next room his parents slept heavily. He heard a groan, and the muffled applause of bedsprings: Dad from the sound of it. The groan was deep and his breath caught at the end as a snorting, snoring sound.

The boy lay very still, straining his ears against the dark. It made no noise. There was no sound from outside at this time of night, no movement in the streets that ran between the terraced houses and down either side like an elaborate ladder of bricks and tarmac. Quietly, the little boy pulled back his covers, swung his bare feet over the edge of the bed, and went to the window. He tugged the curtains wide and stared out at the empty streets below.

Nothing… no one, except a discarded turnip head, soft and smoke blackened, its carved eyes and jagged mouth half caved in by some careless footstep or wanton flinging. Little William Beech from across the road had had a Pumpkin. His mother had bought it at the supermarket in town, and his dad had carved it a Jack O’ Lantern face that seemed alarming happy for Halloween. They had all laughed at him.

They’d laughed when he said ‘Trick or Treat’ instead of ‘Penny for the lantern’. And they’d laughed every time he tried to lift his pumpkin-head lantern up for neighbours to see. His mother had bought the biggest and the best, bigger than her own sons head and far too heavy for little Billy to lift without straining both arms. He’d dropped it early on, and run home in tears when his pumpkin died as the candle went out.

Now it was time.

It had been a mildly productive evening. The little boy had made a few pounds from the neighbours… but then he had carved his turnip with care, and with passion. Its face had glowed eerily… its mouth a gash of what might have been broken teeth or jagged fangs. The eyes had frowned and glared mischievously. The scary lantern face, and the sweet cherubic smile of its carrier, had won the change from many a pocket…

Now the night was empty. The lanterns had been extinguished, coins exchanged or bribed, palms crossed; the safety of the adults paid in copper and silver…

The little boy stood at the window, and began to undress.

He wriggled out of his pyjama bottoms, let them slip off his bony hips and kicked them away with a flick of his foot. He fumbled with the buttons of his top, tossing it in the general direction of his bed, and stood naked at the window, his pale skin bathed in orange from the streetlights. He lifted a leg and placed one foot on the windowsill, hoisted himself up and balanced there, fingers clutching at the frame of the upper section, which was open just a crack. He lifted the catch and pushed it all the way, hooked his elbows over the edge of the window, pressed his bare feet against the glass, and eased himself through the thin gap. He hung for a second, his belly on the frame, half in half out, before slithering forward (there was no other word for it) out onto the ledge.

The boy crouched there, feeling the October chill raise goosebumps on his skin; feeling it tighten and prickle at the tickling touch of night’s cold breath. He smiled. And his smile spread to a grin. And with a sudden leap, he left the window ledge, stretched out through the night and the cold air, hanging, suspended, for an aching second, before grabbing the drainpipe and shinning up on to the roof.

The slates were like ice underfoot, slippery moist with moss and fungus. The boy scuttled across them, up their summit to the shelter of the chimney, where he perched, one leg either side the peak of the roof.

He stared about him now, breathing the night deep into his lungs… the time was closing in fast. He could feel excitement fluttering in his tummy. He could still smell candle wax and burned turnip on the air, and in the distance he could hear the whispered rush of cars on the main road.

The streets were still quiet. He hoped someone would be out… someone foolish enough to walk there, in the dark on such an eve as this. There was fun to be had with such people, such fools as would walk to streets so late on Halloween. Fun to be had with those foolish souls who refused to cross the children’s palms in penance…

The boy looked out over the terraced roofs. Children were crawling across them all over now. He liked to be early to see them come out… it had always impressed him so, to see so many come across their roofs at once, and perch in the dark and the lamp light, and wait…

Across the road, the boy could see little Billy Beech struggling up his drainpipe and clutching at the gutter, his legs kicking and swinging madly, searching for toehold and purchase. Next door, on his left, Selma Bannister gave a little wave as she walked, tightrope style, along the peak of her roof to the chimney, grabbing the TV aerial to steady herself. Like them all, she too was naked. Next door on the little boys right, Mungo Paye was climbing with ease out of the attic window his parents had put in earlier that year, when they’d made him a bedroom there and taken a lodger in to his old room.

All across town, children came out into the night and waited.
And waited…

The night was not perfect; the moon hid its face behind thick banks of cloud that had settled in mid October and since refused to move… but it would do.

Distantly, a bell began to toll. Softly, but carried on the wind. And on roofs across the town, children began to shiver. It was a delicious kind of shiver. It caught their breaths, then gave it back… shakily… fresher and colder. The little boy closed his eyes and felt his belly and his bladder clench. This was it. He could feel the waves of excitement rolling across the roofs of the town. Some of the children giggled. Over to his left he heard Selma give a little squeak that he knew was delight.

The boy hunched himself over, brought his knees to his chest and drew in his arms. He could feel the muscles in his back tighten and cramp. It hurt, but only a little, and still the excitement coursed through him.

And then the wings pushed out of his back… huge, black, leathery wings that sprouted from his shoulder blades. He felt the warmth inside him run cold. In his excitement his bladder let go, and he peed cold urine on the slates and on his legs and feet.
His wings unfurled themselves, huge and dark, and he stood and stretched, as if waking from some deep and dreamy sleep. He opened his eyes and felt them ice over, blue-white from their usual nut brown. He tried to cry out, to shout and whoop… but his voice caught in his throat and came out a high birdlike screech. His voice began a chorus of answering calls, and as he looked out over the roofs, in darkness that suddenly seemed blindingly white, he saw the other children, and together, screeching their joy, they took flight, soaring in to the arms of night…