The Dark Rider

The Dark Rider - By Andrew Critchell


Chapter One



The slow and heavy tick tock of an old grandfather clock sounded out across the still air, shutting out the sound of rain lashing against the window. The sky was a leaden grey that sapped color from everything underneath, while its mass was a physical presence, pressing down on the land and weighting the air with darkness. Outside, street lights began to snap on as darkness started to consume everything around him.

His name was Paul. Nineteen-years-old, he was tall, muscular and slim, with short dark hair and blue eyes. He was sitting in a chair by the window, reading by the remaining light, while all around him the room slipped into shadow. The furniture, bookcases, ornaments, all were losing their sharpness and definition, becoming a part of the greyness that seeped in through the window and settled on everything like a blanket.

It was getting too dark to read so Paul closed the book and raised his eyes. The room had never changed, as far as he could remember, since the very first days, years ago, when he and his sister, Alex, had sat on the aged sofa, looking excitedly at the array of ancient books that lined one wall of the room, each with its own secrets. They would sit there in the morning, waiting for their aunt to call them for breakfast, and all the time they could smell the fresh sea air and feel its beckoning pull.

A particular memory came to him. It was the second summer they were here. He was sitting on the sofa on his own, lost in a book. Sunlight was streaming in through the open window, filling the room with warmth. Outside seagulls and Jackdaws were calling, while the grandfather clock’s comforting tick tock came from the recess in the corner. He had heard something then and looked up to see Aunt Gwen standing in the doorway. She was looking at him in a strange way that he had never seen in her before. He smiled nervously but her face remained serious.

“What’s the matter?” he had asked. She moved into the room and sat next to him on the sofa. She turned to him, as if composing herself. It seemed like a long time until she spoke.

“You know I have waited a long time to find you Paul.”

Paul looked up at her quizzically.

“I don’t understand.”

“There is a reason why you feel different. Why you don’t fit in. Why you spend a lot of time on your own.”

Paul shifted uncomfortably on his seat, wanting to forget.

“You have been chosen for a very special task.”

“What do you mean?” asked Paul. “What special task?”

“It is not really something I can tell you,” she had replied raising her hands, her fingers gently touching his forehead. His skin had tingled under her touch.

“I can only show you.”

Paul blinked. The memory was gone as quickly as it had appeared. He looked around half expecting, half wanting, to see his aunt standing in the doorway looking across at him but there was nothing. The still, grey room lay before him, unchanged and empty of everything but his memories, and the sound of the grandfather clock, and the rain pattering on the window.

His heart thudded heavily in his chest.





Startled, Paul opened his eyes. He had fallen asleep and now night had fallen. He pushed himself upright, stretching cramped muscles, and then checked his watch. It was time. Slowly, Paul rose from the sofa, dread filling his stomach. He walked up narrow stairs to the box-like space that served as a landing between two rooms. He knocked softly on the door of one and then entered, closing the door quietly behind him. A double bed sat in the middle of the room facing the window. A haze of light lay around the bed from the lamp outside while the rest of the room lay in darkness. In the bed lay the frail figure of an old lady. He stood and stared at her, sickened by how small and haggard his aunt had become, shocked at how quickly it had happened. He thought that she was asleep until he realized she was staring out of the window at the rain.

“Paul.”

Paul’s heart wrenched as she spoke in a quiet, brittle voice, broken by sickness. Her breath came quickly and harshly. Paul tried to speak but his throat was caught by tears. He watched her move her head round until her eyes met his, round grey eyes that looked as old as the sea itself, but now it was as if they were gripped by a gale, a furious storm thrashing around within them.

“You can see my pain Paul,” she whispered.

Paul spoke, barely audible.

“Yes.”

With that she looked away and seemed to smile. Then her face tensed as her body was racked by pain. Paul wanted to cry out. He went to her and grabbed her hand. She turned to him, compassion on her face.

“It is soon Paul.”

“I know.”

Tears rolled down his cheeks as he spoke and fell upon her hand.

“I will be all right,” she said. As she did, she met his gaze and for a moment her eyes cleared and Paul thought he saw bright forms moving among them and her gaze, full of love and hope, fell on him and touched his soul for an instant. Then the fog of pain returned and she lay back onto the bed.

“Paul.”

Her grip tightened on his hand as she looked up at him with questioning eyes. “You know this is the way. Why do you mourn for me? What is wrong?”

His tears fell from his skin to hers, crossing the age between them. He saw doubt forming in her mind, a spark of uncertainty. For an instant he opened his mouth, the words forming on his lips, but then the fear took him as it always had, and he buried his feelings, knotting them in the ball that was already growing, lodged deeply in his chest.

“Nothing’s wrong, I’m ok,” he said hating himself for the lie.

She studied him, questions forming on her lips, but it was too late now. She pulled herself up, frail fingers gripping his skin, eyes burning into him.

“Promise me Paul,” she rasped, her voice suddenly urgent. “Promise to always remember the goodness of your heart. Despite everything that will happen, you must remember.”

Paul nodded slowly, unable to tear his eyes away from hers. Inside he wanted to run, to get away from the pressure boiling inside of him.

Eventually her gaze softened and she sank back down onto the bed smiling weakly. She squeezed his hand, mustering the energy to speak once more.

“You must leave me now,” she whispered. Paul wiped his tears away and bent forward to kiss her softly on the forehead. Her skin burned under his lips.

“I will always love you,” he whispered. He stood and looked at her frail form before tears overcame him and he went from her room and ran downstairs back to the window seat where he put his head in his hands and cried. Outside the rain was harder now, lashing angrily against the window, while above, ragged clouds ran across the sky, covering the land under their cloak of darkness.





Paul awoke.

The rain had lessened to a steady drizzle, a soft pattering on the window.

Something felt different about the room. The air had become thicker and denser, the stillness within the walls acute. Paul looked around until, with a shock, he realized the clock had stopped. It took a moment for the significance to dawn on him and then, with a strangled cry, he leapt up and ran out into the hall taking the stairs two at a time until he was by her bedside stroking her hair wildly and gripping her lifeless hand.

“No,” he cried out, trying to force back the tears. “There’s something wrong. It’s not me. It can’t be me.”

He looked at her, willing her to open her eyes, to be alive again yet he knew it was impossible. Unable to bear it any longer he pushed himself up and backed away, tears blurring his vision. Before he knew it he was through the door and stumbling down the stairs. He fled back into the sitting room where he fell into the chair and began to cry, his heart wrenched from his chest by grief.





Paul awoke to sunlight streaming in through the open window. The room lay still and quiet around him, slowly claiming the memories and secrets of the life that had once occupied it. Paul felt nothing but a deep emptiness and tiredness. He stretched his cramped muscles and rose from the chair that had been his uncomfortable resting place. The call of a Jackdaw penetrated the silence of the day.

Paul went slowly upstairs and then paused on the landing, his hand resting against the door to her room. What truth would he find on the other side? With the tension mounting within him, he pushed and entered her room. The body was gone, as she had said it would be. He breathed out heavily, his arm reaching to the wall for support. He forced himself to be calm for there was nothing he could change now.

He went to the window and opened it. A fresh breeze ruffled the curtains and blew across the room, a spirit chasing death from the air. To Paul it felt as if Gwen had never existed. Everything of her was gone apart from the pictures and the memories.

Paul went back downstairs and out of the house into the fresh Cornish morning, walking through the maze of narrow cobbled streets that ran like shadowy corridors between the fishermen’s houses of Penwryn. As he descended the hill he caught glimpses of the long lazy sweep of Penwryn bay between the houses and, beyond the bay, the distant headlands that jutted out from the land. Already they were disappearing into a heat haze.

Paul turned right, cutting across the hill to avoid the harbor and town square. The road came out into the open above Penwryn’s second bay, a small sheltered cove that nestled behind a long, densely wooded headland that stuck out into the sea.

Paul stopped and leaned against a wall by the roadside where he could look down at the bay with its small promenade. Children were already swimming or running around the beach, dodging through the sailing and fishing boats lined up on one side. Paul stared at the headland that ran along behind the bay, framing it with green. He saw and heard the seagulls wheeling around the sky above him, their guttural calls filling the air.

A faint breeze carried the sound and smell of the sea up to him and he inhaled deeply, letting the noise of waves breaking up the beach wash over him as it washed over the sand below. He gazed at the scene before him, thought of the times when he had stood here when he was younger, full of the excitement of imagination, summer and holidays. Within the scene were his memories, entwined within it like a tapestry that only he could see, and each time he came the tapestry became thicker and stronger. Now her shadow lay across everything, a physical presence that would lie across the sea whenever he left and wait for his return.

Bottling up the emotion Paul pushed away from the wall and turned. A few meters away a boy was standing in the street but Paul did not look at him as he passed.

“She’s dead isn’t she?”

Paul jumped, stopping in his tracks. After a second he turned, eyes flashing with anger. The boy was facing him. He was thin and wiry, bright eyes staring back at him from a face streaked with grime. He held Paul’s stare, a strange defiance in his eyes.

“Do I know you?”

“My uncle,” said the boy. “He’s been waiting. He says things about you.”

“What do you mean?” asked Paul. “Who’s your uncle?”

Suddenly the boy looked scared and began to back away.

“I shouldn’t be saying this. I shouldn’t be talking to you.”

He was several paces away now, standing next to a gap between two houses. Paul stepped forward to follow him but the boy held his hand up as if to stop him.

“Don’t stay mister. Please, don’t stay,” he cried out before he turned and was gone.

Paul stood there for a few seconds, the image of the boy, with his clothes scruffy and worn, still before him. The question remained in his mind. What the hell had he meant?





“Dad.”

“Paul, is that you?”

“Yes.”

Paul slipped more coins into the telephone, emotion catching his stomach as he heard his father’s voice. It was early evening and as Paul had walked down the hill he had watched the sun begin its final descent from the sky.

“It’s Gwen, isn’t it?”

“Yes. Peacefully. Early this morning.”

“I’m sorry,” said his dad, his voice almost a whisper. “I just wish your mum was…”

“Don’t say it Dad,” interrupted Paul.

There was an uncomfortable pause.

“Is Alex there?”

“She’s got a big thing on at work. I don’t think she will be back till late,” replied his dad.

Paul’s stomach tightened. His sister was only two years older than him but it felt like a bigger gulf between them. She knew the state Aunt Gwen was in yet she still put her job first. It made him angry.

“My phone’s dead. I lost my charger,” he said in a flat voice.

“I will tell her, Paul,” said his dad.

“It’s not enough,” he replied.

“There are a lot of things going on in your sister’s life right now,” said his dad. Then his voice softened. “She feels this, Paul. I know she does.”

Paul was silent, looking out of the phone box at the restless sea that glowed red in the light of the setting sun.

“The funeral’s on Friday. Will you come?” he asked.

“Yes, we’ll be there,” said his dad.

“Thanks,” Paul replied, his voice mechanical. “I’ll call again tomorrow. Let you know the details.”

“We’re thinking of you,” said his dad. Paul could hear the strain in his voice.

“It just seems so unreal,” he said.

“I know.”

Paul watched as the sun began to fling streaks of red across the darkening sky. Swifts chased each other around the rooftops, their harsh calls growing and receding as they wheeled through the evening glow.

“I’m almost out of coins, I have to go,” said Paul. “Take care of yourself.”

“And you Paul, see you soon.”

“Yes, see you soon,” he replied.

Slowly Paul returned the receiver to its cradle and stepped out into the glare of the dying sun. The light was filling him and drawing him towards itself. His vision was taken by red color that ran through his mind and seemed to try and catch a reality for him, but the chase was lost. The brightness faded as the sun was lapped up by the hungry waves, the victorious sea washing mockingly over the rocks below him.

Light drained from the sky to leave greyness within its wake. Twilight fell like a hazy dream over the land and over Paul, making everything unreal and undefined in the half-light.

Paul walked through the darkening streets, his mind a grey fog, the chaos he felt over his friend’s death rising until his mind churned like the sea in a storm. He walked up a hill and out of the town onto the cliffs that lined the bay until he could go no higher, and then he stopped and turned out to sea. He stood and embraced the wind that swept across the bay coming up at him from the darkness.

This was where he felt alive.

The moon had risen and now laid a bright path of white light across the sea, broken in parts by the shadows of a ragged cloud, blown there by the wind. Shadows hid the hillside from the eyes of the moon and all around him was darkness. Paul stood on a great altar of darkness and before him the sea stretched from horizon to horizon, a glowing carpet for the moon that sat in the heavens, some great King gazing down on his subjects, and all the time the wind blew through Paul and filled him until he thought he could fly up into the clouds and into the Kingdom of the moon.