Chapter 1

Rural England, 1932

The young boy walked down the abandoned dirt road, dust puffing up from under his feet as he moved over the dry ground. At his sides his hands were small balled fists. He forced upon his face a look of determination he did not totally feel. 

Though it was still early yet for sunset, the light was fading from the sky above him. It was as if the sun itself refused to shine down upon this cursed place.  Still, the boy traveled on.

“But Charlie … Gran said we should never come this far, and its going to get dark soon.” A small feminine voice pleaded from behind him.

Charlie halted his steps to turn in the road to face her where she had been following him from several yards back. “Janie go home!” He scolded his younger sister much too harshly and felt guilty for it immediately.  Janie was a small wisp of a girl even for the tender age of seven. Her ragged dress hung from her under nourished frame, the hem stopping just above scraped dirty knees. Tendrils of blonde hair had escaped from their braid and swirled about her gaunt face. Her lower lip quivered slightly.

“I am sorry Janie but you should not have followed me.” Charlie pleaded for forgiveness with his eyes.

“I … I was worried.” She replied in a small voice as she began moving towards him. Charlie waited for her to catch up then he began moving again towards his destination.

“Why are we out here Charlie?” Janie kicked at the dust in the road with her mismatched shoes.

“Because no one is going to call Charlie Mason a coward that’s why!” Charlie insisted boldly, not no one.  “No one will call me a coward like they do Father” he thought but did not say.

“Well who cares what Bobby and them say, what do they know anyway?” Janie made what she felt was a very logical and rather adult point. But her words of wisdom fell on deaf ears.

But to Charlie this journey was about much more than Bobby and the other older boys. It was about walking in his Father’s footsteps. It was about proving everyone in their village wrong. Charlie heard the whispers whenever he passed by. But they were wrong, all of them. His father was not a coward, nor did he abandon them. His father had walked this very path and had never returned. Charlie was determined to prove it.

“Oh you just don’t understand” Charlie shook his head, feeling much more than three years her senior “You’re too young AND you’re a girl.”

“What’s me being a girl have to do with anything?” Janie stuck out her bottom lip and crossed her thin arms over her chest, clearly offended, “and I am old enough to know you shouldn’t care what other people think.

Charlie made no reply. The pair walked in silence. The dirt lane had carried them miles beyond the small village by this point. They traveled with only the company of wilderness on either side. The sounds of animals scurrying and foraging had stopped a mile ago.  Other than their own footfalls, the trees made the only sounds. The trees rustled in the breeze as if they whispered to one another.  They seemed to have eyes too. 

Charlie knew they were getting close. He could tell by the sick feeling in the pit of his stomach. The sour taste of fear in his mouth.  They reached the top of a rise and there it was. A massive stone wall loomed along the side of the road on their left.  The stones were slick with age, mosses clinging to them in greenish black patches. The wall towered at least eight feet above the weed littered ground. Trees rose from behind the wall to twist in tortured poses. Their branches reached over the top of the wall as if trying to escape their confines. The air smelled foul, reeking of decay and death. Charlie wondered if the wall was built to keep people out or something inside.

“Charlie … I don’t like it here.” Janie’s tiny face wore an expression bordering on terror. “Cant we please go home. I am scared.”

Charlie wanted to scold her for being a baby. He wanted to tell her she was just being silly. But all he could do was manage a small whisper. “Me too Janie.”

Janie pursed her lips, “You are going in there aren’t you?”

“I have too Janie.” Charlie replied solemnly.

Janie slipped her hand quietly into her older brother’s and they continued on. They followed the dirt road; the stone wall loomed on their left blocking out the days fading light. The air seemed to be getting colder as they went. 

When it seemed to the children the wall just ran on forever, the entrance appeared. Rising several feet above the wall two stone pillars broke the smooth surface of the wall. A tall cast iron gate stood between them, its bars making it seem like a gaping jaw. On the other side of the farthest pillar the stone wall continued on, running out of site.

Charlie squeezed his sister’s hand and she squeezed back. They moved off the road and towards the gate.

The stone pillars were elegantly carved in relief depicting fanciful creatures of all kinds. Though faded from time and erosion the mythical creatures still danced and pranced across the stones as if they would come to life any moment. The name plate was so old it could no longer be read.  A thick chain, darkened with age wound through the bars of the gate joining them together and permanently closed by a large and rather antique pad lock. The lock, curiously, secured the gates from the inside.

Peering through the iron wrought gates the children could only see weeds, over growth, and knotted trees. And a strange mist seemed to lie over the land. The smell of decay thicker now.

An unnatural silence permeated the air, not even the trees whispered now.

“How we gonna get in?” Janie’s small voice seemed to boom in the oppressive silence.

Charlie tugged on the gates, the cast iron raked against the chains creating a bone chilling whine. The lock and chain were just as ancient as the gates themselves but neither was going to give way. Undaunted the young boy moved to the stone wall. The walls surface was slick with age, moss, and moisture from the mist. He mounted the wall but to no avail. Finding no foothold, his small form simply slipped back to the weeds below.

“There has to be a way” he murmured to himself.