Dragons, Me & You

She hadn’t believed him when he told her what he’d seen; it seemed stupid then. Why would you believe a thing like that, no matter how much you loved him?

‘A dragon, up there on the hill last night,’ he told her, a new light sparkling in his eyes, the low sun reflecting from his hair, blond from the still recent summer.

She’d smiled then, and stroked his blond hair that spread sprawled out over her knee as he lay and she sat on the sofa in the shared flat. Stroked his hair and wished he’d stop talking.

But he didn’t

‘It was a big one today.’

She’d said nothing.

‘It was bigger than the ones before. I told you the other day it was a big one but today’s was bigger.’ His words were faster now, excited.

She stopped her stroking and made to stand up.

He must have felt the movement. ‘Where are you going?’ he’d asked, the light illuminating the innocence in his child-voice. He wasn’t a child.

‘Just to get some water,’ she’d said. She remembered it had seemed forced at the time. She hadn’t wanted water — but they only had water; he couldn’t have anything else, apparently.

His head made a dull pumpf as it hit the softness of the sofa cushion; she was standing, swaying slightly. She went to the kitchen. Maybe water would make her better.

But her mouth stayed dry.

And the next day his eyes were dry too.

And the rest of him.

There were no hills near the shared flat. Just other flats; and a rubbish tip in the distance where the gulls circled.

She looked out towards the gulls now, their faint cries carrying on the dirt-scented breeze through the window. She closed the window. She didn’t want to hear the gulls anymore; their crying made her sad.

And she thought, how would she face a future without him?

‘We’ll take Mr. Wills away now,’ they’d said, the men with the dark clothes. They told her to stay in the flat. They’d call her. She wasn’t strictly family; but she was and the dark uniforms didn’t understand that.

She knew where he’d hidden the phone number so she pulled it out and dialled. It rang. Someone picked up; a rough voice, though his words didn’t sound old.

After the boy had left she picked up what he’d left. She wanted to see the dragon too. She wanted to know it hadn’t been a lie.

And so she in-streamed what the boy with the rough voice who’d known her love had left, into her deepest self. And then she knew he hadn’t lied.

There was the dragon and there was the hill. And there he was, blond hair streaked behind floating graceful in the clean breeze. And she ran to him then. And he took her up. And she knew he hadn’t lied.

 

©Davey Northcott September 2014

If you enjoyed this, check out my ebook: ‘The Path Through the Eye of Another’

A Fortune’s Fate — a short, short story by Davey Northcott

Susan stared into the dark, mirror like eyes of the fortune teller. Wisps of scented smoke were drifting up to her from an incense stick burning in the corner of the small room, the heavy curtains that adorned the walls rustling slightly in a breeze, from somewhere invisible.

‘Give me your hand, my dear,’ said the teller, soft but unnerving. ‘Let me see your palm.’

Shaking a little, Susan did as the woman asked. She didn’t know if it had been a good idea to come here–could she just get up and leave …? A friend had talked her into coming after Susan, a critic of all things supernatural, had seen the shadow-dark stranger following her home, yet again, from the train station. The stranger, who always seemed to hover across the street from her house, watching, until she had closed the front door and been greeted by Burtie, her dog.

Suddenly a wrinkled hand shot out from a thick, black sleeve and grabbed Susan by the wrist. The shock made her jump, leaving was not an option now as the iron grip of the head-scarfed gypsy held her arm pinned down to the wooden table that separated them.

‘Give me your hand, I said, my dear. Don’t be afraid. Mama Iracia won’t hurt you.’

Something about the woman’s words sent a chill running through Susan’s already fast pumping blood.

‘I’m…er…I’m sorry, ok…’ she stammered, fighting to control her nerves.

She felt the old woman’s eyes boring down into her soft, sweaty palms. Then the teller’s skeletal finger rose and fell, softly tracing the lines that criss-crossed Susan’s hand. The sensation was strange, almost a tickle but with the ominous threat of something unseen behind.

The gypsy lady continued like this, in silence, for what seemed to Susan an eternity. Nothing sounded other than the occasional rustle of the curtains but despite her fear, Susan felt a curiosity to know the fortune teller’s verdict.

Would the old woman tell her about the strange shadow that appeared to float behind her along the street? Would she tell her it would be ok, or not? Would she tell her what to do?

All at once a shrill wail pierced the air! The stillness of before was broken and the tension rose, as if emanating directly from the old woman’s now panicked eyes. She pulled her hands back from those of Susan, as if Susan’s palms were burning, and began scraping her long, dirt encrusted nails down, again and again, over the black, lace headscarf.

Susan panicked! What was happening? The incense smoke seemed to suddenly come alive in a frenzied dance like that of a dying snake. It whipped around the room, shooting up to the ceiling before racing down and curling around the head of the accursed gypsy. The old woman scratched her nails from her forehead down to her chin and moaned in despair.

Susan sat frozen to her seat, an evil sensation of acidic bile rising up her throat and threatening to explode out over the now screaming woman in front of her.

And then, just as suddenly as it had started, it stopped. And stillness descended once again on the room.

The fortune teller’s heavy breaths were now the only thing to be heard but although Susan could feel an increasing asphyxia taking hold, the tightness in her chest didn’t allow her to breathe.

‘You must go.’ The teller’s words reached Susan. They opened the gates to her lungs and scented air rushed in, the words relieving the pressure inside her, for the moment at least. ‘You must go,’ the gypsy continued, quiet. ‘Go, but be careful. You will not come back here, that I can see. You will not see other places again in your life; that I also see. You must look behind you. You do not have much time, my dear, so take care of that which remains …’

After that, the fortune teller’s brown skin turned white and a look of fear mixed with sadness rushed, almost imperceptible, across her face.

‘What do you mean? What do you mean I don’t have much time? And the dark stranger, the shadow? Who is he? What should I do about him?’ Susan heard her own alarmed words as if they came from another.

The old woman stared hard into her eyes. ‘There is nothing you can do,’ she said. ‘You cannot hide from him. You cannot escape …’ Her words faltered as if there was something she left unsaid. ‘You must go now. It is not good that you are here.’

And so Susan stood, shaky and confused, and made her way out of the small room.

Outside the heavier dusk of late evening was already falling as she made her way to the tube station.

Later, as she ascended once more from its dark interior into her neighbourhood, she felt in a daze. Half of her told her to forget what the old woman had said. However, the other half could not and kept remembering the wild look in the black eyes and the way the bony fingers had scraped white lines down the leather-skin face.

As she left the station she felt the now familiar rush of cold as the shadow neared her.

But today was different; it was coming faster, faster than her, speeding towards her down the street-light illuminated pavement.

She dropped her bag to run, but her legs felt like lead. Her feet as heavy blocks of stone that refused to move, the tarmac as a quagmire of mud.

And then the shadow was upon her. She screamed and fell to the side from the pavement into the street. And she did not see the van as it came hurtling around the corner, smashing into her side and leaving her blood splattered and lifeless in the street.

Susan was above the scene now, looking down. She saw a shocked man stumble from the van and make his way over to a bloody heap on the road; to her. And she saw the dark shadow creep off down the street, away from her and everything. And at last she felt relief: the thing would bother her no more. And then the images below her became faint and she felt tired and all she heard in the background was the old woman’s voice and the barking of Burtie from behind her front door a little further up the road.

 

Always make the most of what you have, live each day as if it were your last, look forward and never back …

©Davey Northcott June 2014

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Down the Cliffs and Along the Beach – Robin Hood’s Bay, East Yorkshire

The salty sea air rushes up your nostrils at the same time as your legs encounter the burning sensation synonymous with a steep descent. You feel liberated with the wild, rushing wind in your eyes and the crashing of waves in your ears. Then, beneath your feet, you feel the sticky gelatinous mass of the wet sand, conjuring up images of rainy childhood holidays spent shivering under an umbrella or hood, eating gritty hard-boiled eggs.

Venturing further along the meeting point of land and sea, you find yourself amid a mass of shiny, squelching rocks. It takes every available element of concentration not to fall while travelling over their treacherous forms.

            Occasionally, the cold water of the ocean rushes upon your reddened feet, sucking at your heels as it tries to first push you from its path before endeavouring to force you further into its mysterious realm.

A sense of longing takes hold with the waves and an urge to run-swim for the far off horizon creeps over you. All you can think is: ‘I want what is out there. I want to see what’s beyond that never ending line. I want to be there, astride it and behind it.’

But you don’t move. You stay, with your cold white calves deep in the mushy kelp and think about what could be.

 

©Davey Northcott 2014

If you enjoyed this, check out my new release, ‘The Path Through the Eye of Another’

Meet Tania … moving house.

 

Packing up a box of memories; that was how the young girl felt. She didn’t have much, hadn’t been long in the home, but the memories were there. She didn’t know if they would all fit into the shoe box with its coloured elastic bands around it to stop the lid from coming off, but she would try and force them in anyway.

‘Tea’s ready,’ came the shout from downstairs. ‘Hurry up Tania, you’ll want ya’ fish fingers before you ‘ave to go.’

Tania smiled as the last swirls of the kind lady’s voice spun their way up through the part-open door to find her. She would miss this lady. There had been others she didn’t miss, that was for sure, but this one … yer, she’d miss her. And as she gathered up the last of the memories from the crowded bedroom that, for the last three months, she’d been sharing with two others—they were staying, lucky them—she crossed her fingers, nails bitten down to the quick, that the next place she went with her memory box would be like this.

In the kitchen she pecked at her tea. Maybe, if she ate slowly time would slow down also, maybe the spindle arms of the austere clock face would take pity on her butterflied stomach and hesitate. Just for her.

‘What you thinking ‘bout, love?’ asked the kind lady.

Tania smiled up at her through a few fish-crumbs. She didn’t reply, she never did, she never spoke to anyone apart from the memories that she carried in her box.

And then the clock hands did their work and dragged the sound of the glass-muffled car engine to her door.

And she left with a hug from the kind lady, crossed fingers and her box of rubber band-wrapped memories; her friend.

 

©Davey Northcott 2014

Check out my latest novel, ‘The Path Through the Eye of Another’, available on amazon:

‘The Path Through the Eye of Another’