GALLEY BEGGAR PRESS SHORT STORY PRIZE 2024/25

C.D. ROSE

‘Mabbich’

HER NAME WAS POLLY and she hated it because she was named after her mother and she hated her, too. She might have hated her mother less had they ever met but she’d run off as soon as Polly had been born. At least that’s what Nan told her.

‘Why couldn’t I have been named after my dad instead?’

‘You can’t call a little kid arsehole,’ Nan replied. ‘Not even you.’

There was a man who called himself Dad but he kept a low profile. He showed up, like as not, when there was money or drink in the house. That’s what Nan said but even as a child Polly knew Dad didn’t come round much because he was scared of Nan.

‘And so he should be,’ said Nan.

*

Polly remembered little of her childhood and liked it that way. Though she knew it couldn’t be true she’d swear she remembered being born: blackness, a pumping of heat and a striving into the light. She’d been hatched or whelped, shoved out gasping, begat and angry, scrawny but living and covered in blood and mucus which she licked off with hunger. She’d blinked and breathed then howled at the world. Other times, in doubt, she’d think it not a memory but the bad dream, the one which came often, throwing her out of sleep into screams and cold air. If Nan was around she’d come up and laugh; if she wasn’t then there’d be nothing but the resumption of the dark house, empty and silent but for the traffic outside. Polly curled into the damp sheets and lay in vigil until the light cracked.

Childhood was broken teeth in a matchbox, scabbed knees and chapped elbows, shoes that never fit, blood and bones. Childhood was the smell of sour milk and bleach, the touch of slate tiles and worn lino through socks too thin to keep out the cold. Childhood was being told to shut up, shut up, shut up and sitting in back kitchens with pans on the boil and takeout boxes when the Aunties came round to drink vodka. Childhood was an ashtray of a man who called himself Uncle and brought kebabs. Dark cupboards in silent rooms. Dad snooping then vanishing. Nan’s face smoking between the dusk window and the electric fire. There were words she could never pronounce and they made fun of her so she went out and poked in the weeds at the far end of the park and made friends with a lad called Derek who picked up dog poo for a dare. Then the other kids dared him to throw it at her, and he did, and she avoided them after that.  

One evening she came back to find all the Aunties, and Nan, and she remembered the silence when she came in.

‘I know where you been,’ said one.

‘Lads is it?’ said another.

‘What’s for tea?’ asked Polly.

‘She’s young for that yet.’

‘What’s for tea?’

‘Never too young.’

But it wasn’t lads, it was something else. Small things, they were, at first, but she’d always known it. An affinity with dogs and cats – not a liking for kitties or puppies, but knowing what they were thinking: their hunger, their fear. She knew their stinks and scents, when there was a rat around. Being afraid of birds while also wanting to catch them. She heard things no one else did and felt penned in by walls and doors.

‘Yer a bad ‘un, in’t yer?’ said one of them and made her some cheese on toast though she wanted sausages.

‘She’s got it in her.’

‘I wanted sausages.’

‘Cheeky too.’ They found some chicken nuggets and stuck them in the microwave while Polly went into the other room to watch telly but kept the sound down so she could hear.

‘It was about time.’  

‘She has the blood.’

‘Family,’ said Nan. ‘You can’t escape it.’

When the microwave pinged Polly went back into the kitchen where a sour-breathed Aunty tried to gather her up.

‘Yer a wildling, in’t yer?’ Polly struggled against the bony hug. Polly didn’t know what the word meant and didn’t like it. ‘Keep away from the lads, is all I’m saying,’ said the Aunty. ‘You don’t want to end up like your mam.’  

*

The park was too small so she went further. It was only good when she got up onto the tops. There she could drift and breathe. If the school-catchers came looking, she knew places they’d never find her, places protected by sheepskull fenceposts and bleaching winds, by barbed wire snags and dried up cowshit. There were holes and hollows where she could hide, and the endless open space, and the wind.

‘What you doing up here?’ asked a man driving by. ‘You want to be careful, all on your own.’

‘I’m not on my own,’ she said.

‘I can’t see anyone.’

‘I can.’

The Aunties had warned her about the boggarts and hobs in the cloughs, Jenny Greenteeth in the water, the Barguest, the Padfoot and the Gytrash on the tops. 

‘All nonsense,’ Uncle Ashtray told her. ‘But there are still wolves up there.’ He winked.

Polly knew what was true, and what wasn’t, even though her version was different to everyone else’s.

*

At school she was nothing more than one of the odd kids who sat at the back and came and went and didn’t talk much, but once she grew hips and breasts she became normal, one of the many, undistinguished by and undistinguishable to her teachers. Some would know her as a big girl; others as a skinny minny. Some saw lots of hair; others a tight crop kept free of lice. Sometimes there was make-up and others there was none; sometimes there was a big coat for her to hide in and others only a hoody to stop her shivers against the cold. Everyone, though, knew her hard bright teeth.

Truth was, sometimes she’d forget to put the right clothes on, or lose the coat she’d found. Nan cut her hair twice a year. She put on weight then lost it again, randomly. They sent the socials round but Nan tidied up so there was nothing to see. She’s anorexic, bulimic, autistic, ADHD, they said, and sent her to the school shrink.

‘I’m not a psycho,’ said Polly.

‘I don’t think you are, either,’ said the lady, but the word scuttled. ‘Polly Crowe’s a nutter.’ ‘Polly Crowe’s a menk.’ ‘Polly Crowe’s a mad bitch.’ She had a piece of paper to say she was perfectly normal, but no one cared and anyway Polly knew it wasn’t true.

There were others, the shoplifters and the smokers, the ones with bruises and the ones who slept in cars, and they soon found her. They liked having an authentic mad bitch around and told Polly to do things which she sometimes did and other times didn’t. Polly was nowhere near as mad as any of them but the words stuck and scurried like a vole through the undergrowth, like a rat in the kitchen bin. Madbitch, mabbitch, mabbich.

*

She was back in the park with Lia, Megan and Ruby, drinking cans and puffing on high-strength watermelon vapes. Two sensibly-waterproofed hikers crossed the path.

‘Where you going?’ shouted Lia. The man pointed to the top of the hill, smiled and edged past, half-shielding his partner. ‘Good luck with that! I can hear your knees creaking from here.’ The man turned and shrugged, tried a game smile.

‘We’ll do our best!’ he said. The woman scowled at the girls.

‘Who’d want to go up there?’ said Ruby once the hikers were gone. ‘There’s fuck all on the tops.’

‘It’s great for a shag,’ said Megan. ‘You can, like, feel nature all around you.’

‘You’d get beetles crawling up your crack.’

‘She’d prob’ly like that.’

‘Better than Ryan’s finger.’

‘D’you think they’re off for a shag?’ asked Megan. ‘Imagine that.’ They squealed and gagged.

‘It is dangerous, though,’ said Ruby. ‘Our Gary worked up there a bit. Seen things.’

‘Seen what?’

‘You shagging.’

‘My dad says it’s all rich twats shooting grouse.’

‘It’s where the Ripper buried the bodies.’

‘The who?’

‘He wasn’t round here.’

‘Like, Jack the Ripper?’

‘Nah. There was another one.’

‘He’s still alive.’

‘He escaped from prison. They’re covering it up.’

‘There are loads of them, like, rippers.’

‘Gangs and that.’

‘Don’t start that shit,’ said Polly. ‘The only gangs up there are the rich twats shooting grouse.’

‘How’d you know?’

‘Seen ’em. Bastards they are. Killing animals for fun.’

‘When’d you see them?’

‘I go up there sometimes. On my own.’

‘On your own?’

‘Mad bitch.’ Polly swung at Lia, her punch starting in play then becoming anger. Lia grabbed Polly in a headlock and soon they were on the floor. Polly flipped her and pushed Lia face down onto the grass. ‘Stop it or I’m going to puke!’

‘Now then ladies!’ A group of lads arrived. ‘What’s going on here? Normally only see this on the internet.’

‘Fuck off, perve.’ Lia spoke for them all. The girls slunk off; the lads, huddled and timid, jeered. As they went Polly noticed one of them, a boy with blonde curling hair and arms like baby tree trunks, staring at her in awe.

Polly didn’t really know what happened later. They carried on drinking. Things got blurry. Someone had a spliff. When she woke up the next morning she had blood on her jacket, but it wasn’t hers. She thought she remembered being out on the tops, in the dark, but was sure the other girls wouldn’t have gone there.

*

They all sort of drifted after that. Megan and Ruby got boyfriends, left school, found work. Polly got a job in a supermarket but kept on missing her shifts so they sacked her but then she got another in the packing department of a furniture company which was zero hours with some nights and that suited her better. Walking back home with the dawn not quite yet waking was when she was most alive. She slept on sofas when she could and other times, when she could be reasonably sure no one was in, back at Nan’s. From time to time she saw the lad with the arms and the hair. He always smiled at her but never said owt.

She had times when she was ravenously hungry, then others when she wouldn’t eat for days. Times when she felt everything night and wanted nothing more than to hide; others when the days lasted forever and she wanted to walk then run then scream then laugh. She didn’t talk to folk. She was lonely but that was better than having to put up with anyone else. Nan walked in on her one afternoon when she’d been up all night and was trying to sleep.

‘Your dad’s not well,’ she said.

‘Was he ever?’ asked Polly.

‘Who knows? You ought to go and see him, though.’ It was the most human thing Polly had ever heard Nan say.

The lad, whose name was Tam, asked her out but she didn’t want to go drinking so they sat on a bench in the park instead. He smelled of soap and shampoo and was tender and funny. She told him about her job and her mates and her dad and stuff like that, but he didn’t say much. She told him about going walking on the tops and he didn’t laugh at her or call her mad or anything and she liked that. They sat there until it was dark and then she realised how much she’d said and how little he had, and he gave her a little kiss on the cheek which upset her more than it should have done.  

*

It was two buses to the hospital but the place was nicer than she expected. Well-tended flowerbeds on the lawn and enough trees to shelter it from the busy road.

‘He’s had a stroke,’ said the nurse.

‘Of what?’ asked Polly. It wasn’t going to be luck.

He was in a room with three other blokes who all looked older than death. Thing was, her dad looked as bad as they did. Polly wasn’t sure if he even recognised her, but then there was that side-eye, that thing he did, looking at her less than a second then turning away as if he didn’t want to acknowledge her. The place smelled of citrus and pine bleach cleaner, but under that and – for Polly – stronger, was the smell of something else, something rotting.  

‘Tell me about mum,’ she said. He did the eye thing again. He’d heard her, she knew, so she repeated the question. He closed his eyes and pretended to be asleep so Polly pulled up a chair and sat there for ages. She was looking at him when he opened his eyes again, but he still said nothing and started waving his arms up and down, very slowly, as if gesturing to someone, imploring them to come, those swimmy blue eyes fixed on the middle distance. He made a little moan then closed his eyes again.

On the way out the nurse asked her if she was next of kin and took a phone number.

Next night at work her phone rang and she checked it half-hoping it’d be Tam but it wasn’t, it was a local number she didn’t recognise. She didn’t answer because she knew what it meant, especially when there were two more missed calls at the end of her shift.

Tam was waiting for her at the end of the road when she left, as if he knew.

‘Was just passing,’ he said. ‘Thought you might be here.’

‘That’s creepy,’ she said. ‘Are you stalking me?’

‘Nah,’ he said. ‘Just following my senses.’ They walked on in silence. ‘How’s your dad?’

‘Dead.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘I’m not.’

*

Thing was, though, turned out her dad owned a little flat which was now hers. Nowt special, tiny, and there was black mould crawling up the walls but at least it meant she could get away from Nan and the Aunties. Tam came over and helped her clean, then stayed the night. Next day, she called in sick. Tam’s skin was soft but the muscle underneath felt like iron. His shoulder blades were flat rocks under streaming water. His blue eyes looked so far into her it scared her.

‘Where’d you get that name from?’ she asked.

‘My grandad,’ he said. It’d do.

‘I hope you’ve got a condom,’ she said. ‘I’m not ever getting pregnant.’

They lost track of the next few days. She bit his shoulders and nuzzled into his blonde curls. When they kissed she felt her whole past and future being sucked from her and spat out onto the wind. The sounds they made tangled and flew. She gripped him hard so that life should not drag her from that moment. She wanted nothing to get away, to nail him down, while knowing he could do the same to her. She was terrified by the thought that she loved him, and that he loved her. She had to get rid of him.

‘Don’t you have to go to work or summat?’

‘Not today.’

‘What do you actually do, anyway?’

‘This and that,’ he said.

She didn’t care; she wanted no future now. She wanted to topple from the brink of the moment into nothing or the everlasting or whatever there was. She held him so tightly he’d be printed in her bones. Her smiles were bites but she was still hungry. Her fingers were hooks into him and his into her. If this was love it was hard to stop.

*

On the third day, or maybe the fourth, she had to go back into work.

‘Where you been?’ they asked. ‘We were starting to worry. Are you feeling better now?’ Polly said she was but she wasn’t. One of her co-workers saw a scratch on her neck.

‘It’s a fella, in’t it?’ Polly said nothing but her face gave her away. ‘What’s his name?’

‘Tam.’

‘Tom?’

‘Tam.’

‘That’s a weird name. What’s he do?’

‘This and that,’ she said.

*

They found a dead body up on the tops. The news was causing a stir in the pub when they eventually went there. Polly didn’t want to start on the booze again but knew they needed to get out of that flat for a few hours, at least. Tam had sort of moved in and she didn’t want to let him out of her sight but sometimes felt she couldn’t breathe.

‘It’ll be someone who’s topped themselves. Good spot for it.’

‘One of those grouse shooters, more like. No idea how to use a gun.’

‘They can all top each other for all I care,’ said Polly. ‘Do us a favour. Hunt each other instead of birds.’ No one was listening to her.

‘No way. It’s drugs gangs. From town. Vendetta, that kind of thing. Unpaid debts.’

‘Might be cows. If there are calves around, cows’ll kill you soon as look at you.’

Lia was there.

‘Are you going out with Tam Roberts?’

‘How do you know Tam?’

‘I know everyone, me.’ Tam, meantime, was walking round wearing a grin so big it looked like he’d swallowed a truckload of E. Seemed he knew everyone, too. ‘Is he still on the deliveries?’

‘You what?’

‘He used to do deliveries. Driving. Amazon and that.’

‘I don’t know what he does,’ she snapped. Polly wouldn’t let Lia – wouldn’t let anyone – into the blood and bone and tooth-walled fortress she and Tam had built. She told herself it didn’t matter what he did. The world could go and fuck itself. She got up and moved over to Tam and felt the shock when she put her arm around him.

‘No, it’s like, a mummy,’ some bloke was saying. ‘From Viking times or whatever. They used to do human sacrifice and that. The bodies can stay in the peat bogs for years. Centuries.’

‘Are you serious?’

‘Absolutely! Google it.’

‘Bollocks.’

‘That’s what it is.’

‘Bollocks. It’s gangs.’

‘Grouse shooters.’

‘Cows.’

‘Murder.’

Everything was dark and bright at the same time. Everyone was too close and too far away. The voices were spinning around the pub. Light shot off glasses, rings, teeth. Dark huddled in the corners. Everything stank of booze, worn clothes and sweaty breath. Polly got up and headed for the toilets, not because she needed to go but because she needed to be in the cool a moment, alone. Once in, she thought about climbing out the window and running but the window was too small. When she came back they were talking about something else.

‘There’ll be no more shooting up there, anyhow. Bloke who owns all that land is doing a rewilding project.’

‘Like, just letting everything grow?’

‘Pretty much.’

Tam went to get her another drink even though she didn’t want one. One of the lads who Lia was hanging out with came over to her.

‘Here, are you the one they says is a mad bitch?’ Polly didn’t answer, got up and left immediately, but on her way out she heard one of the other lads saying ‘Fucking hell, they’re right’ as he helped his mate pick bits of broken glass out of his teeth.

*

She didn’t go home. Tam would guess that and come looking. She’d have to make sure he couldn’t find her. The night thrilled and trembled, hummed and buzzed. Polly could feel the vibration of each single leaf in the wind, its touch on branches. She could hear the conversation between two crows, feel the weight of the wings of the sleeping geese on the canal. A vole scuttled under a pile of wet leaves and a rat sniffed the bins at the back of the Turkish café. She knew how fast the clouds were moving and when the moon would be out. She heard and felt the thrum of the earth pulling against her feet and passing into her body and it was deep and it was good. She breathed so deeply her head span and flew with the teeming speed of the dark world. She headed out, up the hill, into the night which was her friend.

*

She had no idea what time it was when she got back. Tam wasn’t there so she went to bed and didn’t think on it. When he woke her, shuffling into bed, it was light.

‘Where’ve you been?’

‘Had a job to do. Where’ve you been?’ Polly rolled over and went back to sleep.

Later, when she got up, there was mud on his boots and a flinty smell of something she didn’t recognise on his clothes.

‘Are you still on the deliveries?’

‘The what?’

‘Lia told me you were a delivery driver.’

‘Oh. Right. Yeah, sometimes. Y’know. It’s work you can pick up when you want it.’

‘What else do you do?’

‘I’m a sailor,’ he said. ‘Roaming the seven seas. I’m a high class gigolo, in constant demand. I’m a crypto financier. I’m an international man of mystery, spying for several countries. I’m Batman. I’m Banksy.’

‘You’re a twat.’ And though she laughed, something that was almost jealousy twitched alongside her. She pulled him in and bit him hard.

‘There’s something cracked in you,’ he said. ‘That’s why I like you.’ Polly knew it was wrong but thought that maybe he was a mabbich too, and that he was right, that was why it felt like this.  

*

They’d found another body. People on the socials were going mad, worse than the lot in the pub. The bodies hadn’t been shot, they’d been mauled, they said. Livestock had been slain. There was an escaped tiger. There was a pack of abandoned XL bullies. There were ritual murders, serial killers, psychos. Police weren’t saying anything other than they were investigating links into the incidents and advised people not to go walking alone. Tam kept on scrolling. Polly didn’t want any of it. She knew those places, lived them. Every crag, beck, fold, every wood, field, hedgerow. They were hers and she was them.

‘Why are you so interested?’ she asked.

‘That’s what I was doing. Really,’ he said. ‘Worked for the shooting parties. Driving and that. Beating. Carting stuff around for them.’

‘Seriously?’

‘Yeah. Stopped it now though. They’re not doing more because of that rewilding thing. Not officially, anyhow.’ Polly grabbed his phone and threw it against the wall. ‘That’s what I thought you’d think. Why I never told you.’

*

‘He’s been lying to you?’ Polly had no understanding of her feelings and wasn’t one for sharing with her friends. Lia wasn’t helping.

‘No. Not lying.’

‘But he didn’t tell you the truth?’

‘It was just a job. He needed the money.’

‘You’ve been hurt. You’re making excuses for him.’

‘It’s nothing, really. I don’t why I’m so bothered by it.’

‘I always thought he was alright but turns out he was a cunt. You can never know anyone, really, can you?’

*

People were useless. Polly had to ask the night and the trees and the wind and the clouds and the hills and the rocks and the earth but they spoke a different language, one she knew only darkly and whose meanings revealed themselves as if cast knucklebones. She could ask the crows and the horses and the hares and the finches and the grubs but they would squeak and grunt and gibber their truths which she’d feel but not know. She had to ask her own bones and her own blood, to find a way through the different ways of knowing and living, and there was no one to ask but Nan.

‘So you’re back, are you? I wondered how long it’d be.’ Nan was in the old house with one of the Aunties whose name Polly couldn’t remember but knew as the one who didn’t booze and looked like someone had starched her and her high-neck M&S floral frock at birth. They were drinking tea and Polly could smell the brandy Nan had added to hers from halfway down the road.

‘We were waiting for you,’ said the Aunty. ‘Have some tea.’ Polly refused. ‘You were always rude,’ she said. ‘You were always nasty.’

‘What have you come wanting?’ said Nan.

‘Pregnant, are you? Expecting? That lad?’ said the Aunty.

‘What was my mum like?’

‘As ungrateful as you,’ said the Aunty. ‘Two twigs on same tree.’

‘Not quite, though,’ said Nan.

‘Skips a few generations, sometimes,’ said the Aunty.

‘What happened to her?’

‘She ran off. Told you that.’

‘Why?’

‘Who knows? Not many people know anything, that’s a fact, specially owt about others, or themselves. But you, you know what you want to know, and that’s something, I suppose.’

‘I don’t know the answer, though.’

‘Your problem is that you don’t want to know what you do know.’

‘I don’t want to be like this.’

‘Tough titty.’ Nan sucked at the dregs of her cup. ‘Now then, I’ve things to do, so you can be on your way.’

*

Polly had to live in permanent doubt. She had to live with a part of herself missing. She had to live in spite of herself. She didn’t split up with Tam, but he stopped coming round as much, though when he did they clawed at each other like never. She started going out with Lia again, and Megan and Ruby. Megan had just got divorced and Ruby had had a kid but left it with her mum. They’d get so drunk they didn’t know. Men hit on them like pool balls.

They’d get together at Polly’s and drink a bottle of vodka and paint their faces and cover themselves in scents before going out wilding. Polly wanted glitter and feathers, things that sparkled and shone and behind which she could hide. The mabbich was back and this time Polly knew it was her. They went to a club where Polly didn’t dance but stood in a corner and heard nothing but the highest pitches, whistles and bleeps, the shrill of a phone or a screeching voice and the bass so low it was physical. She could smell everything: the sweat, the heat, the drink, the piss, the perfume, what people had had for their teas and the gases they breathed. She scurried through the crowd in search of mushies or skunk, something chemical maybe. She could see better in the dark, her eyes caught shiny things, necklaces and rings, white teeth in UV, bumps on the back of keys. Everything sped up, the noise, the music, the talk, the people. A man was talking to them; they were getting thrown out. Lia was screaming at him, then she was gone. There were the bins, there was a car, tires, the flash of lights seen from a window, then there was space and cold, the different reverb of voice and sound. She was up top where the wind blew and there was no one else, she was laughing and screaming and running, water somewhere, a beck to follow, stones tearing at her feet. The thrill of fear ran through her; the thrill of fear was her. The ground sped below, the air grew colder and thinner and she moved ever faster, then higher and higher until, dizzied, she could see the whole town and the hills around stretching before her.

*

‘What the fucking hell happened to you last night?’ Lia turned up sometime in the early afternoon. At least, Polly thought it was afternoon. It was definitely light out. ‘You were wasted.’ Polly had no idea how long she’d been asleep; could hardly remember anything. ‘Looks like you managed to get yourself a kebab, though.’ Lia pointed at a piece of chewed meat on the floor. There was no pitta or coleslaw and most of the chilli sauce seemed to have ended up smeared on Polly’s hands and arms. ‘The state of you,’ said Lia picking up the offending gristle and looking for a bin. ‘This looks like it’s got some of my coat stuck to it,’ she said, seeing the hairs that were stuck to the raw-looking doner meat. Polly had scratches all over her and dirt under her fingernails. ‘Megan’s not here, is she? Can’t find her. 

‘Ah, no. Don’t think so.’

‘Were you with her last night?’

‘Um, for a bit, maybe. Not sure.’

‘Have you got your phone? See if she’s messaged you.’ The looked for Polly’s phone but it was nowhere.

‘Must’ve lost it.’

‘Did she go off with anyone?’

‘Dunno. Can’t remember.’

*

Polly didn’t want any more of those nights, not ever. She dug a hole inside herself and buried any sense or memory of the thrill deep down where it couldn’t be found. Tam started coming by more often again. He told her he was keeping regular hours now, and that he’d got a bit of a job working on the rewilding thing.

‘I thought they didn’t need people? Just let stuff grow.’

‘There’s a bit more to it than that,’ he said.

Megan still hadn’t shown up and it had been a week now. They were looking for her ex who’d vanished, too.

‘Police are doing nowt,’ said Tam. ‘We’ve got to look after ourselves.’

*

Things got worse when they found another body. They were all pleased it wasn’t Megan but it didn’t calm things. This one was unidentified, might’ve been there ages. Tam and some other lads were going up there to sort it out.

‘Not vigilantes. It’s just protection. We know them places better than any coppers do.’ He was out all night and Polly thought they were going backwards. She wanted Tam to be an anchor, but all she got was a gun in the house.

‘Shooting club,’ Tam explained. ‘Daft cunts never changed the code on the lock.’

‘I’m not having that thing in here. You’ll have to keep it somewhere else.’ Come night, Tam and the gun had gone. Polly went out looking for them, but found nothing.

*

Next day there was another one. This one was fresh. The police were still saying nothing but the rumour said it was one of the grouse shooters. There were helicopters over the tops and police vans everywhere. Reporters on the streets asked people if they were worried.

‘Have you got anything to do with this?’ asked Polly when Tam showed up.

‘Fuck no,’ he said. She believed him but went off on him anyhow, shouting with the ferocity with which they had once made love. Her blood jumped and throbbed and her teeth flashed. She wanted him to stay forever and she wanted him out of there. She wanted never to leave him and never to see him again, and she told him that and then he was gone and so was she.

*

Out again; night now. Spiral of stars. The roaring wind huffed and puffed and blew into her lungs until they were lighter than air. She rose. Streams of cloud whipped, whirled and darted. Land flashed above beneath around. She flew. Cold held her. Water sped her. Everything was scent, everything was chase. Back to earth with a thud. Rock tethered her. She ran. Snarl and teeth. She prowled, howled. Skin and rain. Mud and bones. Blood and teeth.

* 

Next morning Polly woke with a gash on her forearm and a bruise on her jaw. She’d had the bad dream again, and this time it become physical. Tam was asleep next to her and she didn’t remember him coming in. She got up quietly and went into the bathroom, ran her arm under the tap and washed her face. A black eye was rising.

‘What the fuck happened to you?’ Tam stood behind her, looking at her looking at herself in the mirror.

‘Nowt. Banged my head, that’s all.’

‘How’d you do that?’

‘It’s nothing. Leave it.’

‘Here,’ he said, ‘Let me wash it for you.’ He found a plaster and some arnica she didn’t even know she had and was so tender Polly couldn’t take it.

‘I can do it myself. It’s nothing, I told you.’ She pushed him away and he pulled her to him.

‘I don’t understand you,’ he said, ‘But when I find the twat who did this.’

‘I did it myself.’

‘You’re a—’

‘What? A mad bitch? Go on, say it!’

But he didn’t say anything, only took the gun and left.

*

Later, Polly was out again treading the paths where the dream had led her last night. She must have been gone for hours because suddenly it was early morning and a pale yellow light threw shadows over a crag where a tree grew and where she sometimes sheltered. A woman sat in the nook and even though she’d hardly met her, Polly knew who the woman was, because it was her mum, and she was the same age Polly was now. Her mum smiled at her.

‘Can you carry me over the beck?’ she asked. ‘I have to get over there.’ Polly grasped she was on earth and that she was something fleeting and she took this woman, her mother, onto her back and was surprised at how light the burden was, and she began to walk.

*

Tam had lost sight of the others but it didn’t matter as they’d agreed to split up so they could cover more ground. Light was just breaking when he caught sight of something. Though he’d always had a keen eye he couldn’t quite make it out: at first he thought it a person, one of the other lads maybe, but then it hunched and elongated, moving slowly and carefully. Definitely animal. He knew he should wait until the light was stronger so paced and tracked but couldn’t risk waiting too long. The thing, whatever it was, could dart at any moment. It followed the water downhill where there were more trees and a shot would be tricky. It disappeared a second then re-emerged. He had enough light now; this would be his only chance. Even though still wasn’t sure what it was Tam lifted his rifle and, very carefully, took aim.