The Concrete Grove

CHAPTER SEVEN





HAILEY KNEW SOMETHING was wrong before she even entered the main door of the Grove Court flats. She stood outside the building, clutching her book bag, and looked up at the balcony of the flat she and her mother shared. The window looked smeared, as if someone had rubbed dirt across the glass. The concrete balcony jutted out from the façade like an afterthought, its crooked rail looking as loose and dangerous as ever.

She thought about the Needle, and what had happened to her there. She had no real memory of the events, just a vague image of hummingbirds and something small and lithe and dusty darting towards her from the shadows. Then she’d blacked out and found herself lying on a grass verge a mile away, on the border of the estate, with that man – was his name Tom? – leaning over her, his face knitted with concern.

She pulled the strap of her book bag over her shoulder and pushed on through the door, into the building. At the bottom of the stairs she felt an involuntary internal shudder pass through her as she glanced up the concrete stairwell. Hailey didn’t like enclosed spaces, and the stairs always smelled of stale piss and sweat. Kids often sat around on the steps at night, drinking beer and smoking spliffs, urinating up the walls and shouting into the empty spaces.

She began to climb the stairs, clinging to the handrail and moving as quickly as she could without fear of stumbling. By the time she reached the next floor, she was breathing heavily. Her stomach rolled, once, as if she were carrying something fluid in there, and she belched. Tasting egg in her mouth, she opened the fire door and moved slowly across the landing, heading for the door to their flat.

Outside the door she took out her key and adjusted the bag on her shoulder. Her stomach felt bloated, gaseous. She rubbed the area above her belly button, experiencing mild discomfort. Then she slipped the key into the lock, jiggled it, and turned. The door latch popped and she kicked the door open a couple of inches, jamming her foot between door and frame to stop it from closing again – the lock mechanism was automatic, and she didn’t want to have to fiddle with the key again.

“Mum.” She walked into the hallway, pushing the door shut behind her. The latch clicked into place. She threw her keys onto the telephone table, let her book bag fall to the floor, and shrugged off her jacket. Her arms felt cold; she hugged herself, rubbing at them, wondering if she was coming down with something. There was some kind of bug going around at school, and she could easily have picked it up from one of the other kids.

“Mum! You in? I’m home… what’s for dinner?” She walked along the short hallway, turning the corner into the living room, and was surprised to see her mother sitting on the floor and cradling her head in her hands. The side of her neck was red, livid, and the lights were out. The sky outside the window was growing dark, signalling the early approach of evening.

Then she noticed that most of the furniture was gone.

“I’m sorry, honey. They took it all.” Her mother’s voice was muffled, as if she were afraid to make herself properly heard. “All of it.”

Hailey remained where she was, standing in the doorway. “Did they take the TV? My TV?” She clenched her hands, making little fists, and began to press them into the flesh of her thighs. Her stomach churned, the innards rolling like an internal tide, back and forth, in and out, stirring along with her mood.

“Yes. I’m sorry. They took anything they could sell. I didn’t have the money. I couldn’t get it. I tried.” She removed her hands from her face and looked up. Her cheeks were pale against the red rawness of her throat, and her eyes were dark. “I really did try. I even rang around a few old friends of your father’s, turned on the sob story… but the f*ckers didn’t even want to know.” She stood, sliding her spine up the wall as she straightened her legs. “Not one of those sorry bastards would even offer us a few quid, just to keep the wolf from the door.” She smiled, but it was not a pretty sight. It looked more like she was baring her teeth, trying to snarl like an animal. “And that’s what they are: wolves. Or maybe sharks.” She smiled again, and Hailey looked down at the tops of her shabby trainers.

“It’s okay, Mum. We’ll survive. It’s just stuff… belongings. We can replace them.” She didn’t mean what she said, but she knew it would comfort her mother. Hailey felt nothing, she was beyond feelings. Whatever had happened to her at the Needle had exacerbated a transformation that was already well under way. Gradually, over the past few months, she had been shedding the capacity to empathise, to experience emotions in the way she saw others do. It felt like she was removing herself from the society in which she was trapped. Like a snake, she was shucking off her skin, layer by layer, to reveal a new being beneath.

Quite where these thoughts had come from, she was unsure. They were brand new, alien. She had never before even considered notions like these, and it was terrifying and enlightening. Somewhere deep within Hailey, it appeared that there was the potential to be someone else, to become something new. Whenever she focused on her own mind, picturing what might be hiding there, she heard the distant buzzing of hummingbirds’ wings and smelled dust and rot and the essence of memory.

She saw things behind her eyes when she closed them, late at night when she was chasing sleep. Strange things, dead things: hideous yet beautiful things that shouldn’t be there, not in this world. She knew they were dead because they were twisted, decayed, and they did not move. Not, at least, until she saw them. And then they moved slowly and gracefully, as if underwater, and they turned their shadowed eyes upon her… seeing her, marking her out, noting her as one of them.

That was when their true beauty dawned upon her, and she realised that instead of horror these things promised freedom; they offered salvation, but only if she were brave enough to reach out and take it. That was what her transformation – this unbecoming of the self – was all about. Hailey might be ‘educationally slow’, as her teachers put it, she could even be emotionally underdeveloped, but she was bright enough to know that something was trying to reach her, to communicate with her. She also knew that whatever it was, this being, this presence, its source was the Concrete Grove.

For the first time since moving to the area, Hailey began to feel like she might, in fact, have come home.

“Don’t cry, Mum. We’ll be strong together.”

Her mother stepped across the carpet; her bare feet were soft and silent on the thin weave. She fell into Hailey’s arms.

“It’s okay. Don’t worry.” Roles had reversed. Hailey now felt like the parent, the protector. She was not quite sure how this had happened, or when it had begun, but her definition of reality had shifted to accommodate the changes going on inside her. She held her mother close, stroking her sweaty hair, and kissed her cold, pale cheek. “We can get through this. I love you.” The words tasted sweet, like all lies, and she repeated them out of greed rather than affection. “I love you, Mum.”

Her mother’s body went slack against her, the tension leaving her limbs and the looseness of relief taking its place. Hailey didn’t know how she sensed these things, but it made her feel strong, and more intelligent than ever before.

Was this part of the change? Was it making her brain expand, filling it with new knowledge? She smiled. “There, there,” she whispered. “Nobody’s going to hurt us.”

Later, when they parted, they tidied the flat, brushing up the broken ornaments and toys, putting away the things the men had thrown down onto the floor. They changed the bedding and washed the kitchen work surfaces. Hailey watched her mother carefully, noting the changes in her – just as she had mentally absorbed the ones occurring to her own inner being.

It felt like the end of something… and the beginning of something else.

“Come here,” she said, when the cleaning was done. “I have something to show you. You need to feel it, though.”

“What is it? You seem different… what have you done?” Her mother stepped closer, one hand reaching out to hang in the air between them.

“I’ve done nothing, Mum. Honest. But I am different, and so are you. We both are. There’s something here, in the Grove, and it wants to help us. It’s taken me a long time to figure this out, but whatever’s here, in this place, it can help solve our problems.”

Her mother shook her head. Her eyes shone in the lamplight. “No, honey. You’re imagining things. I know everything’s bad right now, but I promise I can make it better. I have… I have an idea. A plan. I just need to work things out in my head before I do anything.”

“Look, Mum. Can you see?” Hailey raised her shirt, pulling it up over her now swollen belly. More changes had taken place in the last couple of hours, and the pain was gone. Now, in the dimness, she felt radiant, as if she were supplying all the light they needed.

“Hailey… oh, my God. Hailey, what is this?” Her mother’s hands flapped towards her face, like larger pink versions of those hummingbirds, whose wings Hailey could even now hear inside her head. “What is this?”

“It’s help,” said Hailey, bowing her head to take in the sight. Her belly was swelling even now, as they watched. It looked like a balloon being slowly pumped full of air. She stared at the skin in wonderment as it rose and bulged, pushing forward and straining at the waistband of her cheap school skirt. The skin was taut and translucent, like a stretched rubber sheet. There was something inside, and it danced with the rhythm of her blood. A shape pulsed against the whitening flesh of her stomach, not trying to get out but simply making itself known, saying hello to the women it had sensed on the other side of the flimsy sheet.

“Hailey, this isn’t right! It’s not normal! Are you pregnant?”

Hailey giggled. “Pregnant? No, not really. That’s not what I’d call it.”

Her mother began to make a sound, low in the throat, which was something half way between sobbing and laughter. “But what…” She could not finish her thought. Her eyes had gone shiny, clear, as if she were seeing something clearly for the first time in her life.

“I’m not pregnant exactly, but I am carrying something. It isn’t a new life, it’s an old one. Ancient. The seed of a place that I think can only be reached through pain and heartbreak; a place where the corpses of dead dreams are stored.” Hailey heard the words coming from her lips, but she knew they were not her own. The thing inside her, the being that was writhing and coiling and thriving within her womb, was speaking through her, using her thoughts to commune with the other side of the flesh barrier.

“They are the Slitten. And they can help us. But only if we ask them to.”

Her mother was down on her knees and cupping the air in front of Hailey’s distended stomach. “If we ask?”

Hailey nodded, but she was not sure. Nothing was certain. “I think so.” At last she had her words back; the Slitten had returned her voice. “That’s what they told me, from inside here.” She flicked her belly with her forefinger. It made a sound like a tom-tom drum.

“No,” said her mother, standing now and shaking her head. “This is crazy. It isn’t real.” She turned away, flexing her fingers and stamping her feet, powerless to express her anger and frustration. “It’s f*cking stupid.”

Darkness bled back into the room, filling the corners and shading the walls. The lamps seemed weaker than before, as if some of their power had been leeched away. The brightness Hailey had felt previously now dimmed, faded, went out. Her belly deflated quickly, flattening against its occupant. She looked down, still holding the hem of her shirt.

“See? We were hallucinating.” Her mother stood across the other side of the room, near the kitchen. She was lost in shadow, her dark form blurring at the edges. Only her eyes shone. “It’s the stress. We’re both tired… exhausted, really. We need to sleep and stop talking like this.” She did not move. Her outline bled away, as if unseen hands tore at her, picking her apart.

Hailey tucked her shirt into the waistband of her skirt. Her hands were shaking.

“Go to bed,” said her mother, opening the fridge. Light flared, spilling across the floor. She took out a wine bottle, slamming it down onto the bench. “Go to bed, now.”

Hailey turned away, the palm of one hand held against her flat, flat stomach. She was crying, but she dared not make a sound.

She retired to her bed without any more fuss, keeping her movements slow and easy to avoid any kind of disturbance.

The Slitten needed their rest, too.