Previously in Part VIII
“This is Elspeth Rudgesparrow. A gravestone fell on her head and she went mad.” Steven looked from one to the other at their incredulous faces. “These are all the bad people that died, Daddy,” he says, sweeping his arm over the dozens of effigies around him. “The Underground Man told me all about them. He tells me everything. In my head.”
Steven smiles up at them, smug with the secrets he’s sharing, but they still don’t seem to understand. “Can’t you hear him? He’s talking now.” Steven cocks his head to one side.
Mother claps a hand to her mouth. Father stoops to grab hold of him beneath his arms and lift him up in the brisk no-nonsense way that fathers have.
“Enough of this now, Steven. Time to go home.”
“The Underground Man says “A curse be upon you!” Daddy.”
“ENOUGH, Steven! Enough!”
Steven says nothing more. The look he gives Father says everything.
Part IX
Father had promised they would take Steven to see someone, more to humour Mother than anything else, but now? The black, chilling certainty he had seen in Steven’s eyes had touched a nerve within him. This was fear; and the fear had erupted into rage; there was nowhere else for it to go. Steven was hauled back to his room, unresisting, where he faced down the tirade of rebukes and warnings, eviscerating Father’s authority with placid silence. It sucked the blood from the anger like a leech. Lost for words, deflated, father slammed the door and went to find Mother.
“He’s only a little boy, Marcus, are we not being too hard on him?”
Father shook his head “Something is not right with him. We need to get him seen. We need to get him to a psychologist. Something has got into him,” he tapped the side of his head “Something up here.”
Mother began fresh tears. From the landing, between the bannisters, Harry peered down and listened. He looked towards Steven’s bedroom door.
The parents made hurried arrangements. An emergency appointment with the doctor a call to a private psychological hospital. They telephoned the boys’ school to advise that Steven was not well. Harry went to taunt Steven through the bedroom door with all the cruelest things he could think to say.
They’re going to take you to the loony bin and never let you out, you know.
Steven didn’t understand what a loony bin was, but it didn’t sound nice. He didn’t understand his parents’ concern, but his brother’s meanness was nothing new.
What I said was true. You have to tell the truth. Mummy and Daddy say “Always tell the truth.” Why can’t they hear the Underground Man?
As they were about to leave the house for the Doctor’s Harry ran down to say a mocking goodbye. Hugging Steven fiercely to him, feigning affection, he whispered in his ear “Loony bin! Loony bin! You don’t get out when they put you in.” He was very pleased with himself for coming up with that and couldn’t hide his grin.
Steven looked up at Mother. “Where are we going, Mummy?”
“Just to the Doctor, darling.”
At the surgery of Horace Clamp, general practitioner, Mother and Father – and Mother in particular – could not keep quiet with their worry. The Doctor looked from one to another as they recounted their concerns, interrupting each other, with Steven sat between them, looking somewhat lost. But to the Doctor, their story was not troubling. The boy had a make-believe friend and sneaked into the graveyard to play with him. This seemed not unusual at all for a young boy.
“And how are you feeling about all this, young man?” he asked, when the parents eventually paused for breath. Steven was silent, staring back at the Doctor’s kindly face with black, placid eyes.
They don’t believe anything I say, so I won’t say anything at all.
He looked first left, and then right, fixing both parents with a hurt, pathetic stare.
“Mr. & Mrs. Speighhart. Perhaps…could I speak with Steven, alone? Would that be alright?” The Doctor urged them to agree with an earnest, nodding head, and so they left the room.
“I’ve listened to them, Steven, and now I think it’s your turn. That’s fair, isn’t it? What do you say?”
The law of the playground rang true for Steven. Yes, that would be fair…but what if HE doesn’t believe me either?
Dr. Clamp read the doubt in his eyes. “I have to believe you Steven. I wouldn’t be a very good doctor if I didn’t believe what people said, would I?”
Steven began his tale and the Doctor’s practiced air encouraged him to leave naught out in the telling. Soon, the Doctor reached for pen and paper to catch the details, struggling to keep hidden his rising incredulity. This was not at all usual for a little boy.
The Parents are called back into the room; Steven understands that he is to tell his very interesting story to another Doctor, a special Doctor, because his is a very special story indeed. As Father takes Steven to the car, Mother remains, anxious to know what the Doctor thinks.
“He’s in very good health, Mrs. Speighthart, but I cannot speak to matters of the mind – it would be wrong of me to offer any diagnosis. I’m making a referral to Dr. Twitch. She is a child psychologist and she will see him soon. In the meantime, take him home, make sure he is well rested and perhaps…keep him apart from his brother. Harry, is it? Yes – there is some enmity between them. Don’t let Harry tease him?”
The family head home and Dr. Clamp reads and re-reads his notes. He picks up the telephone to make an appointment for Steven, but then thinking on, asks to be put through to Dr. Twitch, if she is available.
Ah, Hazel – how are you? Good, good. I’ve just seen a young boy and I’d like you to see him. No, I think it best that I don’t speculate. I think it would be best if you saw him yourself. And soon. The family have private health insurance, and I’ve made the appointment. Oh, and Hazel, before I go, out of interest…has your family lived in the area long? Since the 1800s you say? By any chance was one of your ancestors a certain Dr. Theolonius Twitch? Really. A story to tell, you say? No…let me guess…
In the Rectory that evening, the family sit for dinner. Harry is asked if he would like to go and stay with granny and grandpa for a few days. He doesn’t like the idea at all. He doesn’t like what Granny cooks and Grandpa is weird. Their house smells of toilet.
“It’s not fair!” he shouts. “Steven’s the loony! Steven’s the one with the made-up friends. Why am I getting punished?” He sulks in his room, more determined than ever to get one up on his brother, one way or another. There comes a knock on his door. It’s Steven.
“Why do you keep saying I’m a loony?” he asks.
“Because…because you are! You make up things, like…like the Underground Man. You upset mummy, and you play with slugs and you go in that stupid church. And you’re weird now, you’re not like my brother anymore. That’s why.”
“But its true, Harry. I’ll prove it, if you come with me to the church. Unless you’re a chicken. Unless you’re too scared.”
The boys glower at each other, but Steven has played the chicken card; it’s power is irresistible. Harry is trapped.
“We have to wait until they’re asleep, Harry,” whispers Steven. I’ll show you how you can tell. They creep to stand outside their parents’ door. “When mummy is snoring, that’s when you can tell they’re both asleep. Listen.”
“What if they come out!”
“We can just say we were going for a wee.”
Undetected, the boys creep from the house, armed with the big rubber torch again. A sense of adventure grips Harry; he begins to feel excited, to understand why Steven liked to sneak about in the dark. As they get to the churchyard wall, Steven shows Harry how he climbs up it. “I’ll go first, you follow me,” he says and once atop the wall he begins to sense the whisper in his mind…the whispering of the Underground Man.
“He’s here, Harry I can hear him already! Quick, use the tree roots and climb up!”
Harry does as he is told, and Steven, familiar as he is, even in the dark, guides his brother to the gravestone that bears the family name. He shines the torch upon it “Look!”
Harry feels a delicious thrill of fear as he reads the family name upon the stone This is what Steven meant. This is the Underground Man! “What do we do now?” he asks, shifting on his feet and stepping back, stepping off the grave.
Steven pulls out the brass bell from his pocket. “You ring the bell, and then you say the name. And then he comes. That’s what I did. Go on.” He holds out his hand with the brass bell in it, but Harry hesitates.
“He doesn’t hurt you. He just…tells you stuff. He tells you about all the bad people and what happened to them. Go on. Don’t be a scaredy cat!”
Ring the bell, say the name. Ring the bell say the name.
Harry performs the ritual, and Steven waits eagerly, waits for the subtle presence to rise and make itself felt for his brother, just as it had for him, but nothing happens.
“Do it again,” Steven urges, and Harry does…but still nothing happens. What Harry does not know - what his father does not know - is that Father is not Harry’s father. Only Mother has an inkling of the truth, but she tries not to dwell upon that particular night. Harry is not a descendant, he is not of the Speighthart bloodline; his presence does not stir the curse, and in the absence of the curse, harsh contempt rises instead.
“You’re a bloody bugger and a liar, Steven. When I tell Mum and Dad about this, they really WILL send you to the loony bin!” He punches his brother square on the nose, knocking him down into the weeds. He sits dazed, in tears, as Harry runs back to the house with the torch, cutting crazed beams across the garden.
Alone in the graveyard, Steven sobs. He is inconsolable. Why didn’t you come? I brought him like you said, but you didn’t come. I hate you. I hate you, and I hate Harry. I hate you all.
He pulls out a hanky from his pocket to blow his nose and dry his eyes – hankies are something that Mother always insists be carried – and pulling it away, he sees blood. It drips from his nose, he tastes it, the metal of it. It drips to the ground, red in the hoar frost forming in the chilly night, red on his hanky. Red like the berries on the yew tree.
You must never eat of the fruit of the yew, my boy. Bright may the berry be, and sweet, but the nut within, the bark, the leaves and every other part shall bring with it certain death.
“Why didn’t you speak to Harry? Now he won’t believe me.” Steven speaks into the night.
Your brother be not of the Speighhart line, dear Nephew, or the curse would crystallise, as ever has it done. You are young to learn of such things, but you must learn of the wickedness, the sinfulness of the world, and just punishments to those that warrant it. Your mother was a wanton. A slattern! There, I have said it. There can be no other cause for your brother to escape this heritage. Have I not told you well the lore? Whilst my bones rest below, those who saw me wrongly put down into the ground, them and their descendants, whosever of these as shall come within the grounds of the church shall be cursed.
Steven is not listening, he is closing his mind to the voice that has led him down this strange path and which now has let him down most grievously. He’s thinking about the “loony bin” and the trouble his brother will get him into. He is thinking hateful thoughts. He is picking the yew berries. Their slick sap seeps like oil onto his fingers as he plucks them from the bough and wraps them in his hanky.
NO! No Nephew! Thou shalt not kill! It is the Fifth Commandment! Punish the unworthy, bring them low with guilt and shame; curse them to a sordid, pitiful life if that is what they merit, but you must never take a life. Judgement is for the Lord alone to execute.
But Steven is not listening.
To be continued in PART X…here
To start from the beginning - click here
Infidelity, slugs, revenge. What a perfect triumvirate!
I used to play with slugs when I was little. And then I would help my mum set beer traps and sprinkle any escapees with salt to protect the cabbages from their voracious appetites.
I think I might be a bit Steven… 😂
Excellent, Nick. This story has developed a life of its own and now, now there is no escape!
Love this series — love the name Underground Man