“There’s a whole bunch of big birds way off. Buzzards. Circling.” She mashed the pond weed into the pot, lips pursed with effort.
“That’s what birds do, isn’t it?” We’d wound ourselves up tight the night before, lying outside under the stars like teenagers with a Ouija board, but in the pragmatic light of morning, the knots slipped and the anxiety eased. In my experience, there was a rational explanation for everything. “Peter’s on about fires. Charlie’s fretting over the cows. Now birds? Please don’t tell me you think this is some kind of omen.”
“It’s not a fricking omen.” Joni separated watercress leaves from the stalks like she was wringing a neck. “The buzzards are circling over that farm. Think about it: the cows are dying.”
I opened the cooler and stared at the contents—we’re out of milk—while I thought about it.
“So let’s drive to the village.” I let the lid drop. “We’ll find out what’s going on. And if we can find a shop that’s open on a Sunday, we’ll get some fresh milk.”
We gathered the kids, squeezed Horatio and the big boys into the boot so we’d all fit in one car, and for the first time since we’d arrived on Friday morning, left the camp.
I slid my foot off the accelerator and let the automatic engine haul us along the dirt track out of the forest and across the field. We had the windows down, patrolling the landscape on all sides. A kids’ CD was playing quietly on the stereo: a scene from The Wind in the Willows. A plummy voice intoned, “There seemed to be no end to this wood, and no beginning, and no difference in it, and, worst of all, no way out.” I clicked it off.
We watched the buzzards soaring with the brutal grace of skateboarding teenagers, up to nothing that was ostensibly no-good, but menacing all the same. Their cat-screech cries cut through the uproar of rooks until, in response to some secret signal, the birds swept away and silence revealed itself like a genie. At the top of the dirt track, the Beast splashed through a ford in a shallow stream, and we accelerated onto the main road.
It was just over five miles to the outskirts of Wodebury. The town was little more than a village, but it must’ve at least had the basics—a shop, a post office, a pub. Somewhere we could find an explanation for why we were the only car on the road. We passed St. Sebastian’s church, with its standard-issue Norman tower and gnarled yew tree. The grass, diligently mown into cricket-pitch stripes, only emphasized the decrepitude of the graves, whose stone faces were streaked with tear tracks of mascara-black algae.
“They used to plant yew trees in graveyards”—Lola’s voice so close it made me jump—“because people believed they drank the poison left by the bodies.”
An empty church on Sunday morning? Maybe the service had already finished. I had no idea what time people went to church. In any case, it was deathly quiet. Silent as the grave.
“Hey, kids, this must be the dead center of town!” I said. No one laughed. My brain churned out wisecracks, passed down like family heirlooms from my father, on some kind of inappropriate autopilot.
We rolled past a handsome rectory, and then a school, windows dark, as were those in the row of sandstone almshouses opposite. We followed the road to a junction, where I accelerated away. Billy whooped as he bumped back against his seat. Charlie urged me to go faster, and I complied—anything to distract them from the traffic signal, which no one else seemed to notice had no light, no power.
At the next junction, I turned toward the town center. We cruised round a bend, and I had to swerve around the rump of a car that was sticking halfway out of a driveway. I could feel Joni staring at my left cheek, wanting eye contact. But I couldn’t face the discussion, the speculation; giving voice to my worries might make them real.
I squinted at the road ahead and pulled over before a single-lane stone bridge that arched across a shallow river. Beyond was a village green with a pristine cricket pavilion to the left and a pub off to the right. There was no one crossing the bridge, or fishing in the river, or playing on the green. I turned off the engine, which tutted in the awkward silence. The kids started to move and unstrap their belts.
“You all stay here with Joni,” I said and got out. “No exceptions. Do not get out of the car.” I looked at each one in turn, including Joni, to make sure they got my point. “Do not follow me.” And, just as I pushed the door closed on Billy’s wide-eyed face, I added, “Mummy always comes back. Okay?”
The door slammed as they broke out into protests. It muffled their noise, and the hush enveloped me. It was as quiet as fresh snow, and I was loath to be the first to sully it.
My wellies clopped as I walked onto the bridge. Greenish lichen prickled my fingertips as they trailed over the stones. Tree limbs creaked. The bridge narrowed at the highest point, where I stopped and looked across to the pub. There were a few cars lined up in the car park—a Range Rover rubbing shoulders with an old banger—and one van stood with its doors open, blocking the driveway. A refuse sack lay ripped and eviscerated, its contents scavenged. A barman’s tray sat on a lone picnic table—the smokers’ table—a pint glass still upright with murky liquid and fag ends floating inside, the rest in a shattered pile on the ground below.
I crossed the bridge and walked into the car park, past the abandoned van—keys still in the ignition—and the picnic table, which was thick with wasps. Then around the corner into Wodebury high street, toward the front door of the pub, whose artfully distressed signboard promised real ale, gastro fare, and good cheer. I stopped beneath the painted crest of the Whiten Arms, which swung and moaned on its gallows.