Black Hare Valley: The Final Chapter! “The Fight”

November 13, 2025November 3, 2025 ~ ChanAtkins ~ 4 Comments

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Mr Bishop is chasing Ralph and Jaime up School Lane towards Black Hare Road.

‘Get back here!’ he bellows after them and the tone of his voice chills Jaime to the bone. He sounds deranged with fury; outraged and incredulous, like he simply cannot believe they have the audacity to run from him.

Running away from an adult, let alone a teacher, let alone the head-teacher, goes against all of Jaime’s good-girl instincts. Her guts are a tight knot of dread and she can’t help picturing her mum and Mark in her head – the disappointment in their eyes when they find out. But she hears another sound, a low rumbling growl and when she looks over her shoulder, Jaime is horrified to see a large feline creature is chasing them.

She lets out a high-pitched scream that ought to wake the dead – but of course, there is no one about – how convenient, she thinks, no one to open a door or even a window to see what is going on. But Ralph grips her hand and holds on tight, and they race up the next road towards the safety of the book shop.

They tear down the back alley and look back to see the cat, a lynx, she thinks, is pounding after them. But suddenly it stops running and slows to a trot. It seems conflicted, its ears twitching, its tail low and stiff. It stops.

At the end of the alley, Ralph and Jaime look back and see the cat is turning around.

‘What’s it doing?’ Jaime whispers to Ralph.

‘I think it’s leaving.’

‘Come on.’ She grabs his sleeve. ‘The treehouse.’

They run towards the Finnis gate and bump headlong into Willow, who is clinging to the gate, her eyes wide and her mouth gaping. She grabs them when they appear, then tugs them frantically over the threshold and into the garden.

‘Mayfield,’ Willow pants, her shoulders heaving. ‘Chased me but then he left.’

‘Bishop,’ Ralph responds, breathlessly. ‘Same. Then changed course.’

‘Why?’ asks Jaime as they huddle together in the darkness and it hits her at the same time it does Willow. Their eyes widen in alarm and startled, they cling to each other’s hands and cry at the same time, ‘Paddy!’

Jesse cuts around the back of the town hall but before he can burst out onto Town Road and race across to Black Hare Road, he smells something new in the air – something old and heavy and powerful and hungry, and all his hairs stand on end – but he can’t stop running, can’t stop his legs in time. He runs into something solid and the breath leaves his body as he’s thrown backwards onto the ground.

Winded, he stares up, aghast, as the huge looming form of Sergeant Aaron Mayfield stands over him. The man who has haunted his dreams for as long as he can remember. The man who killed his aunt and his mother. He thinks suddenly, how? How and where did he kill her?

Before he can ask, Mayfield is shoving him down hard and his big black boot collides violently with Jesse’s ribs. Mayfield grabs his right arm and a pair of handcuffs is snapped over his wrist. The man is growling and drooling, his eyes manic and bloodshot as the beast struggles to get out.

Jesse is stronger now thanks to Margaret and as Mayfield reaches for his other arm, he brings up the right one and swipes at Mayfield with the dangling metal cuff. He swings as hard as he can and hears a crack followed by a groan. Jesse reacts fast, scrambling to his feet and aiming a kick at Mayfield’s backside as he rubs at his head. Mayfield staggers forward but does not fall. Jesse waves the knife at him.

‘You killed my mother!’

Mayfield turns slowly and grins at him. His lips lift away from his teeth and Jesse can see saliva strung out between them, glistening in his beard. The man reeks of primal animal hunger.

‘And I’m gonna kill you too,’ he laughs, lurching forward. ‘I should’ve killed you years ago!’

Jesse backs up warily, waving the knife. ‘Why didn’t you?’

‘It was too much fun playing with you!’ Mayfield sneers and runs the back of one hand across his chin. ‘It was fun making you run all over town doing whatever I wanted. But that’s done now. I’m not letting you join us, Archer. No way. Not a useless scumbag like you! You’re not fit to lick our shoes! You’re not one of us!’

Jesse shakes his head. ‘No, I’m not and I never will be. But I am gonna kill you, old man. Something tells me you should’ve died a long time ago.’

Mayfield laughs and lunges again. He grabs Jesse’s arm just above the wrist, close to the knife. He tightens his grip as Jesse struggles and his eyes widen when he takes in the knife. ‘Did she give you this?’

Jesse doesn’t answer. He swings the cuff again, battering Mayfield with it. ‘How do you do it?’ he screams as they both fall to the ground. Mayfield has both hands around his wrist and is trying to free the knife. Jesse hits him in the head again and again with the cuff. He sees blood fly but Mayfield does not seem to feel the pain or the battering. ‘What do you do to them?’ Jesse sputters as they wrestle for the knife.

‘We tie them down!’ pants Mayfield, wincing from another strike and loosening his grip on Jesse’s wrist for one moment. He recovers, using his knee to pin Jesse’s free arm to the ground. ‘In that spot in the cellar!’ he goes on, grappling for the knife as Jesse tightens his fingers around it. ‘We circle them and we all take a part of them, all of us! We take them apart bit by bit with our teeth and our claws and this knife! Give it to me you fucking shit! You’re not worthy!’

Jesse twists away, the knee pressing his arm down but his fingers scrambling at the ground, searching for a rock or a stick. His other hand grips the knife handle with immense strength, with something he didn’t know was inside of him, or something he does not recognise, refusing to let go.

Mayfield growls impatiently. ‘We take every bit of them, Jesse, is that what you want to know? What happened to Paddy and your aunt? Bit by bit, piece by piece and they feel every moment, Archer, every slice and dice and every amputation. Their blood flows and drenches the earth and we all join hands and say the words and their true form is set free… it’s not murder… it’s new life!’

‘Until you chase them down and kill them!’ Jesse yells, his fingers closing on the end of a fallen stick. He swings it at Mayfield but the knee is still in his way. He twists onto his belly and feels Mayfield rise on his back, still clawing at the hand that holds the knife.

‘That’s the fun bit!’ he leers. ‘Hunting them down and tearing them to shreds!’

Jesse lets the stick go and now clings to the knife with both hands. He bucks his back and Mayfield tumbles off and lands heavily behind him. Jesse knows he shouldn’t have that kind of strength, but he does, and he is determined to make use of it. Mayfield is still clutching his arm but Jesse brings up his own knee and boots him in the chest again and again until finally he feels the grip loosen. He rolls away as forcefully as he can and he takes the knife with him.

Mayfield rolls and grins at him through bloodied teeth. ‘Then we drink them, just like you did, Archer. You’ve got them all inside you too now, Paddy, your mother, your aunt!’ He throws back his head and howls laughter. ‘You’re gonna live forever whether you want to or not!’ Mayfield gets on his hands and knees. He lifts the back of one hand and drags it across his menacing smile. ‘But you don’t deserve it. It should have been you that was taken. Iris never liked me. Thought she’d wind me up by forcing our hand, forcing us to take Finnis!’

Rejuvenated, knowing it is now or never, Jesse staggers to his feet and spins around. Mayfield sits back on his knees and Jesse wonders if he should let him change or just go for it. He steps forward, knowing he can do this, knowing he is stronger for now, faster, smarter, knowing Margaret has faith in him and so do his friends. He runs at Mayfield with the knife and he sees where he will plunge it, right into the man’s exposed neck as he throws back his head and howls.

Jesse lunges with the blade and the tip is sailing like ice towards its meaty pulsing target when something comes crashing out of the bushes behind Mayfield. Something large and furry and snarling in rage. He feels huge paws thump into his chest and he is thrown backwards again, further this time and when he lands, not only is he winded but his head throbs from striking the ground so hard and the knife is thrown aside.

Shit, he thinks and closes his eyes.

When he opens them he is staring up into the snarling face of a huge lynx cat and somehow he just knows it’s the other man who has always loathed him, Mr Bishop, the headteacher. His claws curl tightly into Jesse’s clothes and the weight of him is pushing him into the earth.

He thinks, okay, I die now, but Mayfield is on his feet and striding over. The beast on Jesse’s chest releases its hold just long enough for Mayfield to pull Jesse’s wrists back together.

‘They’ve got the book,’ he snaps as he clicks the cuffs back on. ‘So we can’t kill him yet.’

The cat’s green eyes narrow and it stretches open its mouth to reveal what look like hundreds of razor sharp feline teeth. It hisses so loudly Jesse feels the breath whipping back his hair.

‘It’s okay, Mayfield goes on, giving the creature a stroke between its curved ears. ‘I give you permission to drag this piece of shit by the neck and as soon as we get the book back you can finish him off. Then we’ll eat him together.’

The cat seems to smile as it lowers its head and Jesse flinches away from the thick meaty smell of its breath as it stretches its jaws once again to receive him. He is unable to scream as several teeth puncture the skin of his neck and the blood begins to flow.

Willow, Jaime and Ralph group together under the treehouse. The bookshop and the flat above are dark and closed up. No help there. No sign of Paddy either. Willow lowers the spell book to the ground and unfolds the cloth.

‘Should we go out there and look for Paddy?’ Ralph wonders, chewing on a nail and looking around anxiously.

Jaime slips an arm around his waist and rests her head on his shoulder. He wonders if now would be a good or bad time to tell her how much he likes her…

Wind and rain are battering the garden around them and the dark town beyond. Everyone has gone inside – gone home – and Ralph thinks of his mother and swallows a small sob.

‘What about Jesse?’ asks Jaime. ‘He should be here by now.’

‘No, we’re all early,’ Willow responds, glancing at her watch. ‘We have to assume he’s safe because Margaret has plans for him. Its Paddy the beasts were after.’

‘But why?’ Ralph wrinkles his nose in confusion. ‘What would they want with him? Especially if Mayfield knew you had the book?’

Willow is flicking through the pages, poring over the Latin words with her brow furrowed in concentration. Jaime leaves Ralph and crouches beside her.

‘What are you looking for?’

‘A way to kill them or a way to stop it all, but I can’t make sense… I don’t know Latin, damn it, these words or spells, they could mean anything!’

‘What about the protective ring?’ asks Jaime. ‘We might need to strengthen it is all I’m thinking. Or even expand it?’

Willow is shaking her head then thumps the book in frustration. ‘None of it is any use if we can’t read it!’

‘Better give it back to its rightful owner then,’ snarls a voice and they all jump and look up in fright.

Sergeant Mayfield is at the gate and a wild cat about the size of a Labrador is at his side. Bishop, Ralph thinks in dread – and worse – Jesse is with them, handcuffed and dangling by his throat from the cat’s jaws. Willow and Jaime leap to their feet, hands pressed over their mouths in horror. Ralph finds himself moving slowly forward, out from under the treehouse.

He’s staring at Jesse, long and hard and then he sees the boy’s eyes move, along with his chest. He is still alive. Ensnared, trapped, but alive.

‘A fair swap,’ Mayfield growls. ‘Toss us the book and your friend here lives.’

Ralph looks back at the others and Willow looks down at the book. ‘This is proof, isn’t it?’ she asks, lifting her chin. ‘It’s important to you because it’s the only thing that can prove what you’ve been doing for so long.’

Mayfield smiles at her coldly and tilts his head. ‘Clever girl. Give it back and your friend lives and I don’t arrest you for breaking and entering my house, again!’ He roars the last word, making them all jump back a step.

‘Let him go first,’ Ralph says. ‘We need to see he’s okay and then you can have your book.’ He inches closer and feels the girls doing the same behind him. Willow has wrapped the book back up and is holding the bundle under one arm. Ralph slides a hand around to his back pocket and slips his fingers inside to retrieve his pen knife.

Mayfield nods at the cat, at Bishop. ‘All right, drop him.’

The feline beast opens its jaws and Jesse drops to the ground, gasping and coughing. He lays on his front, his head turned to them, his eyes desperate and pleading. Blood surrounds his neck and pours down his front. What if he is dying, Ralph thinks, he’s dying and it’s already too late…

‘Now toss us the book,’ says Mayfield, but suddenly he steps back, eyes narrowed, head turning rapidly to the left, the right, the left again.

Ralph sees that something is moving in swift figure of eights around their feet. Something small and nimble. The cat has noticed it too and it lowers itself, its haunches lifting slightly, its ears flattening on its broad skull, while its chest, flicked with Jesse’s blood, draws breath in and out, and its short tail whips from side to side as if it preparing to pounce.

Ralph frowns – he can’t see what’s got their attention but whatever it is it is affecting Jesse too. As they look on in confused horror, Jesse presses himself up from the ground and sits back on his knees, sniffing the air like an animal. His frightened eyes are different now – keen and alert, hungry. He plants his cuffed hands in the grass and lowers his head, snarling suddenly, then lunging for something dark and fast that scoots out of the way.

Then Ralph understands.

It’s Paddy. He’s distracting them all, teasing their predator instincts so that they can do what needs to be done. It’s Ralph who seizes the moment. He pulls out his knife and flicks up the blade, grabs the book from Willow and tosses it under the treehouse. He shoves the wide-eyed girls towards the gate.

‘Get Jesse in the circle! Get him!’

The girls don’t argue and all three of them rush forward. Jaime and Willow grab Jesse between them, seizing an arm each and dragging him backwards. He struggles, whipping his head from side to side and growling to get free. Ralph sees his jaw snapping and hopes the girls keep their fingers away from his mouth.

They fall over in the struggle but Jaime grabs a leg and yanks hard and Willow wraps her arms around Jesse’s middles and wrestles him violently backwards. The lynx ignores Ralph and Jesse – its focus is now totally on the quick black hare that darts and leaps and twists between them. It’s too fast and agile for the cat and Mayfield, who is still in human form, turns and waves a dagger through the air, his eyes flitting madly as he tries to keep the hare in sight.

It’s all darkness, shadows and confusion but somehow Ralph forces himself forward into the middle of it all and while Mayfield is trying to snatch at the hare or stamp on the hare, he sneaks up behind him. Before he can think twice, before he can hesitate or question himself or back out in any way, he punches Sergeant Mayfield in the side of his thick neck with the small knife. It is only a short stubby knife and Ralph lets go almost instantly, backing away in horror as the lynx pounces on the hare. Mayfield’s hands flutter up to his neck and he tries to pull it out but he can’t; the handle is too short and slicked with his blood.

Ralph staggers away, back within the circle where Willow and Jaime are still wrestling with Jesse. The lynx does not notice Mayfield sinking to his knees, or Jesse writhing in the grass because the lynx has struck at exactly the right moment and has the black hare ensnared between its huge padded feet.

‘Paddy!’ Ralph hears Willow scream behind him.

Ralph continues to move backwards until he trips over Jesse’s thrashing legs and lands on top of him. He spreads out his arms, as if keeping all three of them safe under and behind him. He watches Mayfield fading.

The blood gushes, soaking his police uniform – glistening in the moonlight. His white hair is plastered to his skull by the rain. His hands fall away from the knife and his eyes go dull. Finally, he splutters and vomits blood before pitching forwards, face first.

He lies still. Everything goes still.

The lynx is frozen, facing them now with its prize hanging limply from its jaws. Everything is so still. Even Jesse has stopped fighting and growling.

Everything is still and silent.

Ralph blinks at the scene before him. Sergeant Mayfield with a knife stuck in his neck, blood pooling in the grass around him. The black hare hanging lifelessly from the jaws of a huge cat.

Willow cries out pitifully; ‘Paddy, Paddy, no!’

She disentangles herself from Jesse and Jaime and crawls forward but Ralph quickly blocks her – holding his arms out to both sides – his eyes fixed on the lynx.

‘Not yet,’ he warns her. ‘Mr Bishop is still here.’

Jesse pitches forward, his hands still cuffed, his head thick and foggy, he feels like he has just woken from a dark dream and he needs to shake himself. He feels Jaime let go of his arm and he moves forwards a few paces on his knees. The lynx stares right back at him – yellow eyes harsh and unforgiving as its lips seem to curl around the bloodied hare. Around Paddy.

Jesse flicks his hair from his eyes. ‘Put… him…down…’ he says, his voice juddery as tears begin to flow. He glances at the knife sticking out of Mayfield and remembers the one Margaret gave him. He moves forward on his knees until he reaches the body lying on the very edge of the circle.

‘Jesse, be careful,’ Ralph warns him.

He doesn’t care. He reaches into Mayfield’s back pocket and retrieves the dagger, then looks at the lynx, at Mr Bishop.

‘Put him down!’

Just then, a large bird swoops down from the stormy skies – it circles the garden twice, emitting a haunted mewing sound before it flaps slowly down into the alley, aiming its outstretched talons at the cat.

Margaret, thinks Jesse as Jaime turns to Willow and hugs her tightly and Ralph falls back to join them. The huge brown and cream buzzard flies at the cat, raking at its head and back with claws. The cat does not argue – it drops the hare, hisses then turns and lopes away into the darkness.

The buzzard follows it for a moment and then a figure appears in the alley, eyeing them all. Margaret. She looks solemnly at Jesse, who meets her eye before turning his gaze back to the limp body of the black hare.

‘Paddy… no…’ Willow whimpers behind him and he wants to go to her, go to all of them, but he can’t, he can’t move, can’t tear his eyes from the hare. His eyes burn into it, willing it to move, to live.

Margaret crouches and lays a hand upon its side. ‘I’m sorry,’ she says, raising her head to meet his eye again. ‘I am so sorry.’

‘He saved us…’ Ralph murmurs from behind while Willow sobs, wrapped tightly in Jaime’s embrace.

‘Is he dead?’ Margaret nods at Sergeant Mayfield.

Jesse, the dagger trembling between his hands, looks down at Mayfield. Suddenly, the rage and grief consume him, washing over him in a torrent and he lifts the knife and slams it into Mayfield’s still body – again and again. He grunts and cries and swears and wants to run to Paddy, pick him up, hold him, save him. He wants to beg Margaret to do something. But he is rendered speechless by rage and grief and useless regret. He never told Paddy what their time together meant to him.

He feels Ralph touch his shoulder and ease him gently backwards. Ralph keeps an arm around him and searching Mayfield’s pockets, comes up with handcuffs keys. He turns to Jesse, takes his quivering hands and releases the cuffs.

Jesse covers his face and sobs.

It’s Jaime who speaks next. ‘What now?’ she asks Margaret in a voice that is surprisingly steady.

‘Well,’ Margaret raises her eyebrows. ‘You four get out of here and let me get this all cleaned up.’

‘What about Paddy?’ Jaime frowns, her voice shaking slightly.

Margaret’s face softens. ‘You can take him.’ She looks to Jesse. ‘Go on, go. You’ve all done enough. Been through enough. Go home. Look after each other.’

‘But what happens now?’ Jaime persists, as she gets to her feet, pulling Willow up with her. ‘With the rest of you? And the town?’

Margaret smiles back at her. ‘We keep going.’

‘You mean you get away with it, with all the missing children, missing strangers…’

Margaret shakes her head sadly. ‘There will be no more strangers. That was Aaron.’

‘Just a sacrifice,’ says Jesse, raising his head. ‘Every generation, right?’ He scowls at her. ‘Could be your baby brother or sister next time, Jaime.’

‘That’s what I’m worried about,’ she replies, glaring at the mayor.

‘Well, maybe not,’ says Margaret, standing and wiping her hand on her jacket. ‘Maybe it is time to change. After all, all four of you know our secrets and that places us in a precarious situation at the very least. But the town does need custodians. The town needs feeding. It will fade otherwise. Iris saw to that a long, long time ago. I’ll tell you everything, in time, but you must understand this, willing or unwilling, the town requires what we give it.’

‘No.’ Jesse shakes his head. ‘It’s not the town, it’s you. You’re all power hungry and selfish and you want to live forever. That’s what it gives you.’

She nods at him. ‘Yes, it gives us that so we can be custodians, but if we knew there would be replacements… willing ones…to do our duties after we are gone, then maybe it could be done differently. We will talk again. We will. But for now, you must go. You must bury your friend while I bury mine.’

Ralph helps Jesse to his feet and looks at the girls. They form a line and move forward together, weak, in shock, shaking as they link arms.

‘I’ll need the book back,’ Margaret says to them as they approach the gate.

‘No,’ Jesse replies first, shaking his head firmly. ‘Not yet. Not until we understand everything. Not until we feel safe again.’ He glances back at the bundle under the tree. ‘That’s our insurance policy.’ He fixes the mayor with a hostile glare before leading the others past her. She does not say a word as Willow crouches and scoops up the hare. They turn right and walk down the narrow alley together, crowded around Paddy’s body.

They go to the ruins. It feels safer – the furthest point from town and the closest landmark to Bob Rowan’s farm. The storm has abated and only a slight drizzle patters upon them as they shelter there together. They dig the hole with their bare hands, sending the earth deep into the nails and skin and then Willow lays the hare carefully inside.

They are all weeping as they take turns sprinkling earth on top of the body. They bury him, not talking, and then they reach for each other and hold each other tight in a circle above the grave.

‘This isn’t over,’ Willow promises them through gritted teeth and they all nod in reply.

Jaime and Ralph leave first, trailing wearily through town until the reach the Hare and Hound pub. Jaime is pale, her eyes glassy and she does not speak during the walk but when they reach the black side door, she turns to Ralph and hugs him tightly. He wonders, is this my chance? Is this the right moment or the wrong one?

And when she pulls back, he puts his hands on either side of her face and he kisses her.

At the ruins, Jesse hunches up against the wall and stares dully at nothing. He feels ragged and battered and is fighting to keep his eyes open.

‘Do you want to come back to mine?’ Willow asks him. ‘I don’t think my parents will notice.’

He sniffs. ‘Mine never did. They never stood a chance, anyway.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘My aunt, she was sacrificed, then my mother she was like us, you know, she tried to find out what happened to her sister and her sister came to her, like Paddy did to us.’

Willow jerks forward, eyes wide. ‘Oh my god! And were we right about our parents, Jesse? Were they all trying to find Carol-Anne?’

‘Yes, like us and Paddy, Margaret told me,’ he nods. ‘So, Mayfield killed them both. Bishop was the latest one to change. They killed Paddy so he could change and live forever. Never age. Never get ill. But I’m going to stop them and I’m going to kill Bishop too, for what he did to Paddy.’

Willow feels cold at the thought but nods, understanding. ‘What about the rest of the committee?’

‘They’re all changed,’ he tells her. ‘But they need to replace Iris and Bob. Margaret told me that’s why they want me and Jaime’s mother. Maybe next time will be my turn. But that’s never going to happen. I’d rather kill myself first.’

‘What about what you’ve already had? What she’s already done to you?’

‘I’m not a risk to Paddy anymore.’ He lowers his eyes, lips trembling. ‘But maybe I can use it against them. I’ll do whatever I have to.’

‘What about the book?’

He looks at her, eyes cold and shrugs. ‘Like you said, bargaining power.’

‘Nothing will happen now for a long time,’ she sighs. ‘We’ll be adults by the time it does.’

‘Exactly,’ he seethes. ‘And if any of us have children…’

‘We won’t let it happen,’ she argues. ‘We know too much. We figured it all out and we stopped them and we’re still here, Jesse. They didn’t beat us.’ She opens her mouth to say something else, then breaks off, staring forlornly at the grave. ‘I’m going to miss him so much.’

Jesse drops his head into his hands. He closes his eyes and wonders if he can finally say it to her, to himself – what he has been holding back all this time – what led him to Paddy’s treehouse that day, the day he tried to blow up the school.

He bites his lips, clenches his teeth and feels it exploding inside of him, the need to tell, the longing to share and when Willow crouches softly beside him and brushes his wet hair away from his face, he says it, whispering the words into his folded arms.

‘I… I think I loved him… I think he knew me.’

Willow is silent for a while, brushing his hair, smoothing it back. She wraps an arm around him and sighs softly as she rests her head on his shoulder.

‘I know.’ Jesse responds with a huge shuddering sigh of relief. ‘It’s all right,’ she says. ‘It’s all going to be all right.’

The next morning the four of them meet wordlessly at the treehouse and stand around the book. Margaret wants them to take it to Hill Fort Farm and allow her to take care of it, just as she promises to continue to take care of Jesse. But Jesse has packed his things into a bag he wears on his back. He doesn’t know where he will go or where he will sleep tonight, he just knows that it will not be under her roof.

And as for the book, it is leverage. It is security.

‘This town is going to work a little differently from now on,’ Jesse declares and they all agree. The book will remain with them.

Margaret sits on a chair on the patio when the work is done. She pours herself a large glass of ruby red wine and lights a cigarette which she raises slowly to her smiling lips. The house behind her is silent. Hilda was fractious when she returned but Margaret made up her favourite bedtime drink, milk with honey, dropped in the extra ingredient and before long her disabled daughter was sleeping like a baby.

Horatio has followed Margaret outside. She can see him sniffing anxiously at the rose garden. He spends a long time sniffing the fresh earth and she watches his ears twitching as his lips pull back from his teeth. Finally, he turns and cocks his leg over the grave of Sergeant Aaron Mayfield and Margaret lets out a great hoot of laughter.

He waddles back to her side, sits down and bangs his thick tail against the patio. She scratches him behind the ears and gazes back at the rose garden. She feels vindicated, she supposes, like a victor. She expects complaint from Bishop, rebellion even, but she knows it will be futile and short lived. His only true supporter was Aaron, and Aaron is gone. Bishop won’t want to upset her, not really.

She has won.

Her two greatest enemies are in the ground and she has secretly consumed blood from them both. It runs through her alongside centuries of other blood, blood scratched and flayed free from helpless victims, from the vital sacrifices they must continue to make. Blood that burst from eyeballs, flowed from slashed bellies and erupted from clawed veins. She licks her lips very slowly, savouring the metallic tang as if it is almost erotic.

Her thoughts turn to Jesse. She saw him leave Willow earlier. She watched him trudge towards Rowan land. The Holloway, she thinks with a chuckle, he thinks he can hide out in the Holloway. She will let him for now. She will let him seek solitude and lick his wounds. She knows he will come back out eventually and then she will pounce. She looks down at Horatio and revels in the idea of owning a very different kind of pet.

The End

Thanks for reading!

Please feel free to leave a comment letting me know what you thought of this last chapter. Thank you for reading along and being part of the Black Hare Valley world and journey! I have written five books in this series so look out for future blog posts, news and extracts on Black Hare Valley. the story is far from over and things are about to get even darker….

NOTE: Please remember this is NOT the finished version of Black Hare Valley Book 1. This book has not been to my editor yet or even my beta readers. There will be typos, grammatical mistakes, and sentences that need rewriting.

Black Hare Valley: Chapter Twenty-Nine “The Hunt”

November 6, 2025November 3, 2025 ~ ChanAtkins ~ 2 Comments

Jaime feels like her life has become a dream. From the moment she wakes up with weary confusion dredging through her bones, to the moment her head hits the pillow again that night, her mind is drenched in fog, and nothing feels real. Not home, not school, or the town or her life. She starts to fear she left reality behind when they moved to Black Hare Valley.

She wonders in odd moments, such as during morning assembly or while playing netball or eating her lunch, if she is maybe just in some sort of stupor. Shock. She supposes it would make sense. After all, she moved innocently to a new town and found herself pulled instantly into this hideous nightmare that surely can’t be real…

The realist part of her still won’t fully believe any of it. The journalist in her can’t let go no matter how dangerous or terrifying or confusing it gets. And her logical rational mind still can’t fully grasp what she is trying to deal with.

For surely, it can’t really be true?

That a sinister committee rule the town, that the mayor, the headteacher, the policeman, can all turn into animals? That people go missing here… some never heard of or seen again…. While others… She saw the black hare with her own eyes yet she still can’t believe it.

And now she and her friends are planning to kill someone. Fear grips her whenever she thinks of it. She can’t eat, every mouthful sticks in her throat; she can’t sleep. She certainly can’t concentrate on school and she dreads being called into the head’s office…

But if they don’t do it…

If she’s too scared, too afraid, if she cowers or breaks or lets them down… If they don’t do it, it will all carry on. Missing people, missing children. She does not want that on her conscience because she seems to know that allowing it would ruin her life forever.

Ralph tells her he is going to Rowan Farm after school. Jaime nods back at him before she can say no. ‘Me too,’ she whispers and it is decided.

When they arrive at the farm, Bob Rowan is waiting for them at the gate. It’s a dull grey afternoon; night eager to creep in and steal the town until morning. There are murmurs all over town about the awful weather and how it feels like summer will never arrive. Jaime can’t help feel like it is their fault. She nervously checks the sky as they approach the gate. She’s relieved to see Rowan there. Though her guts churn with dread, at least they didn’t have to risk trespassing again.

‘Better be quick,’ the old man grunts at them, arms resting loosely on the top bar of the gate. He’s wearing dark overalls and wellingtons, all smeared in mud. A scruffy olive green duffel coat hangs open, revealing a blue knit jumper that has seen better days. His woollen cap is pulled low, shielding his eyes. ‘What d’you want?’ he snaps. Then adds with a snarl, ‘Quick.’

‘We’re going to do it,’ Ralph blurts out. ‘When he’s changed. We need to know when and where and how. We don’t want to mess it up.’

‘He’s smarter than you are,’ Rowan retorts, glancing over his shoulder. ‘Faster, stronger, smell you coming, he will. Hear your thoughts. He’ll be ahead of you so how you gonna do it?’

‘You could help us,’ Ralph says, pleadingly. ‘Tell us what to do, so it works!’

The old man laughs at him. ‘Don’t let him catch you. If you’re gonna do it, you’re gonna do it. You’re not gonna get another chance. You gotta weaken him, slow him down, get the upper hand.’

‘Like a drug?’ Jaime askes, brightening.

Rowan waves a hand, looking away. ‘Something like that. You’re not gonna get close enough though, he’ll know you’re coming.’

‘There’s more of us,’ Jaime replies stiffly. ‘And we won’t give up. He needs to be stopped.’

Rowan nods. ‘He’s bloodthirsty. Hungry as hell. Gets worse every year. He’s a devil. Bad seed. Wrong un. Always known it.’

Jaime suddenly wants to ask him so many things. Her head is full of questions she has to know the answers to but she feels panicked knowing he’s already tired of them. So, she reaches out and snatches for the best question, the right question – the question with an answer that will make killing Sergeant Mayfield something she can do.

‘You’re one of them,’ she says. ‘A raven. But how? How did that happen to you?’

He waves a hand again, stepping back. ‘Committee stuff. Old stuff.’

‘How old? Hundreds of years? How long ago did this start?’

‘No date,’ he almost laughs. ‘Just when.’

‘When?’ she almost screams. ‘How long?’

‘As long as the town!’ he barks back at her. ‘It’s the place, idiot girl. It’s this place.’

‘But what about it? A place can’t turn people into animals…’

‘Don’t understand it.’ He shakes his head. ‘Place is special. Different. The air, the earth, the blood.’

‘Is it some kind of magic?’ Ralph asks then. ‘Iris gave Paddy that book full of spells.’

Bob Rowan breathes in and then out again slowly, as if considering the best way to answer such a question.

‘Called ‘em witches back then,’ he grunts. ‘But I dunno. I think it was here before then, before society, before people, before any of this. She harnessed it maybe. Found the right words or objects, maybe. She was the first. The oldest.’

Jaime gawps. ‘Are you saying Iris started it? But started what? What did she do to the rest of you? You must know! It happened to you! You’re one of them!’

He waves a hand again and looks annoyed. ‘Wasting time! If you want it to stop… the missing ones, the dead…. You got to kill him. That’s it. Talk after.’

Jaime stares at him. It is an enticing thought. One that tickles her investigative mind. One that almost makes her want to go and murder officer Mayfield right now. She feels brighter suddenly. More awake. She licks her lips and turns to Ralph.

‘How will we do it?’

‘I don’t know.’ He shrugs at her helplessly. ‘I don’t even know what he is. Mr Rowan, if we did it, would it be easier to kill the man or the… ?’

Bob Rowan shoves his hands into his pockets and nods once. Ralph nods back.

‘We should do it tonight,’ says Jaime and then feels ashamed and shocked by her own words. She and Ralph look as Bob Rowan lowers his head and walks slowly away.

Willow wanders restlessly for hours. She goes home, then leaves again, taking a few orders with her to deliver for her parents. She can’t settle – how can she? Knowing what they must do. And it must be soon, tonight, before any of them chicken out. She’s written another note for each of them and delivers them as discreetly as she can, adding to Ralph’s that he ought to use his mother again to get it to Jesse. It feels risky. As usual, she can’t help fearing who might be watching, who will know what they are planning. It seems like the committee are always one step ahead.

She’s not sure if they’ll all come – Jaime seemed panicked and sickened at the ruins earlier and she still thinks Jesse is in almost constant peril at Hill Fort Farm – then there is whatever is happening to him, changing him. Can they trust him? Willow hopes so. She just knows that she’ll be there, with or without the others.

She flits around town like a shadow – making the deliveries, keeping her eyes open, for what or who, she doesn’t know. Willow eventually finds herself at the police station. She wanders slowly past, glancing in the open door to overhear an old lady complaining that someone has been picking her flowers without her permission.

Willow lingers long enough to hear Sergeant Mayfield’s gruff tones responding. Willow moves on, a sudden plan forming in her head. She doesn’t think, she just moves. She knows she can’t allow herself to pause, plan or consider because if she does, she’ll tell herself that this is too crazy. Too dangerous.

So she runs around to the back of the house and flattens herself against the house wall. Willow blinks away the rain running down from her hood and into her eyes. She counts to three then reaches out and tries the door handle. It’s locked. She sighs. A broken window it is then.

Jesse looks up with a start when the library door creaks open. He whirls around with an armful of books to find himself face to face with Margaret. He lowers his arms slightly but holds onto the books.

‘Jesse,’ she says, standing up a little taller and pushing the door gently shut behind her. ‘There you are.’

He glares back at her while his pulse throbs violently in his ears. A smile flutters hesitantly on her lips. ‘What are you doing?’

He turns back to the shelves, running a finger along the ancient dusty spines. ‘You can’t stop me.’

‘Stop you doing what? Looking for a book?’ She gives a little chuckle. ‘Jesse, if you want some reading recommendations I’d be very happy to oblige.’

‘Okay then.’ He swings to face her again. ‘How about a book on how to kill men who can change into wolves? That would be helpful.’

Margaret lowers her arms and her shoulders dip as a puff of air escapes her pursed lips. ‘Jesse… You’re planning to kill Sergeant Mayfield?’

Jesse doesn’t answer. He carries the books over to the small round table and deposits them there on the shiny surface.

‘I can help you…’ Margaret says in a low, soft voice and Jesse’s head whips up, his eyes narrowing.

‘What?’

She comes forward. ‘I can help you. But first, you have to do something for me.’

He shrinks back instinctively. ‘What?’

‘I want you on the committee, Jesse. I need you.’ She comes closer again, smiling gently. ‘You’re right about Aaron. He needs to go. He’s a danger to us all. But the committee won’t like it. Some of them in particular. You might say there is a power struggle… Perhaps there always has been.’

She sighs and slips into the chair beside the table.

‘What do you mean?’ Jesse asks her.

‘Bob Rowan.’ She rests her head in one hand and looks up at him. ‘The reason he left us was Aaron. He didn’t like him, didn’t trust him. Saw the direction his bloodlust was pulling us in, I suppose. Bob left us a long time ago, Jesse, but that only made Aaron stronger and I know you know how he keeps control over so many people.’

Jesse nods stiffly. ‘The cameras.’

‘Indeed. Cameras everywhere. Secrets and lies and blackmail. He doesn’t have anything on me – well, no more than I have on him obviously, but the others are afraid of him.’

‘Then let me kill him.’

She smiles. ‘I will. Before Aaron joined us there were no deaths, you know, no kills.’

‘There were missing children though?’

‘Yes,’ she nods. ‘There always were. Once in a generation we have to feed. But our feeding doesn’t kill the child. You’ve seen that for yourself.’

Jesse feels his stomach muscles tightening. ‘Paddy.’

‘Exactly.’

‘You change them to keep you alive? To stop you ageing?’

‘It’s complex,’ she sighs. ‘But you’ll understand it all once you’re one of us.’

He shakes his head even though he knows it’s too late. ‘I don’t want to be.’

‘Well, I’m sorry but you already are. There’s no turning back, no undoing what’s already been done. You need to keep going, keep trusting me and then we can take on Aaron together.’

‘I’m going to get a gun.’

She shakes her head. ‘I’ll give you a knife. It has to be a silver knife. You’ll need to wait for him to change.’

‘Okay.’

Now she leans closer and takes his hand. ‘Come on,’ she whispers. ‘Come with me now. I’ll give you the knife and you’ll do something for me.’

He swallows tightly. ‘What if I don’t want to?’

Her smile stretches. ‘Jesse, do you want to find out what happened to your mum?’

His mouth falls open slowly. Time stops.

The mayor takes his hand again. ‘Come on. It’s time.’

Jaime and Ralph have both received the message from Willow. They were about to go their separate ways but the message tugs them together again. Ralph suggests they call the pub and tell Jaime’s mother she is staying for pizza at his house.

‘It’s not even a lie,’ he smiles as he picks up the phone. ‘Mum left me money to order in. She’s working late.’

Jaime nods unsurely and slips wearily into a wooden chair in the small kitchen. ‘Okay then.’ She takes the phone and starts to dial.

Ralph walks into the lounge. ‘I’m gonna pack some stuff,’ he says over his shoulder and she gives him a thumbs up as the phone starts to ring.

Ralph leaves her to it and hurries up to his room. He finds his school bag and empties it on to the bed. He grabs whatever he thinks could be useful in taking down a human/wolf hybrid. Rope from the shed, a hammer, an axe, a first aid kit, a bottle of water and a roll of thick tape.

Jaime finishes her call and watches him carefully. ‘Best to be prepared,’ he shrugs at her. ‘Just in case.’

‘What will we do with the body?’ she asks him.

He winces. ‘I don’t know. He’ll be an animal though, right? We could just bury it or throw it in the river. I don’t know.’

‘We need to get it all worked out,’ says Jaime, a note of exasperation creeping into her voice. ‘It needs to be a proper plan. We need to be sensible. Careful.’

‘We will be,’ nods Ralph. ‘Once we’re all together at the treehouse.’

Jaime drops her head into her hands. ‘If we get there!’ she exclaims. ‘If something or someone doesn’t try to stop us.’

Willow waits for a terrifying few minutes, convinced someone at the station would have heard the breaking glass. She thinks of Sergeant Mayfield and his super senses and closes her eyes tightly for a moment, willing herself to stay strong and not panic.

No one comes whirling around the corner so she reaches through the glass and turns the handle from the inside, letting the door swing open. Now she knows she must be fast. She remembers the cameras – will he have access to them while he’s next door? There’s no time to think about it – no time to think twice or worry. She takes off, running into the house, clattering, breath held, up the stairs and into his surveillance room.

Oh, how she would love to sit and watch each screen. Learn his secrets and unravel the hold he has over the town and everyone in it. But no, she’s here for one thing and one thing only. Willow recalls what Jesse told them about the loft door and she does as he must have done; climbing onto a desk and balancing on one leg while she stretches her fingers towards the hatch door.

She grunts, straining, reaching the latch and shoving the door to one side before flailing around for the book. For a horrible heart-stopping moment she fears that it’s not there. That she has risked everything for nothing. Then, her thumb brushes over the soft material of the cloth it was wrapped in and she reaches in further, gripping it, yanking it.

At that moment, she leans out too far and suddenly she’s falling. She’s shorter than Jesse and has overstretched. She hits the floor on her knees and elbows and the cloth bound book thumps down beside her. Winded, electrified, terrified, Willow grabs it and runs.

Margaret leads the way through the kitchen with Jesse in tow. She holds his hand tightly and does not even glance at Hilda or Horatio who are sharing ham sandwiches together. They enter the large pantry and Margaret closes the door behind them, perhaps indicating that they must not be disturbed.

She strides forward to the cellar door and Jesse feels colder, fear prickling across his skin while his pulse continues to roar in his head and his heart starts to hammer thunderously. Outside, the storm is picking up pace again – not finished with the town just yet. He catches a glimpse of tall dark trees shaking wildly from side to side outside, and then Margaret unlocks the door and nods for him to go on.

He steps down and cold air hits his face; makes him draw back. Under the cold air is something else though, something low and warm and alive. Margaret bumps into his back so Jesse takes the steps down until his feet meet the hard compacted earth floor. He looks around, peering into the shadows – his lips trembling as he forces his teeth together to prevent a scream from escaping.

Margaret picks up an old lantern and lights it with her lighter. It provides enough light to guide their way into the centre of the space. Jesse turns his head, taking in the cell doors and the stains on the ground. There is that buzzing in the air again – electricity thrumming in waves, making his hairs stand on end and his teeth chatter.

‘What happened to my mum?’ he hears himself ask in a small young voice.

Margaret lets go of his arm and walks away a few paces. He sees her come back with the same bottle she had at the meeting – the one he drank from. He shakes his head.

‘I’m not drinking anything until you tell me.’

He realises then that he can’t move. He’s in the same spot – frozen in place – limbs and muscles locked by some awful ancient primal fear. Fright or flight he thinks helplessly. Predator or prey.

Margaret stands before him clasping the bottle. He sees something glinting in her other hand. ‘This is the knife that will kill him,’ she says in a low, soft hypnotically gentle voice. ‘And you can kill him, Jesse. You can do it. But you must drink this first.’

‘Why? What will it do to me?’

‘It’ll find you. That’s what it does. It goes to the very core of you and finds who you really are. And then in time, sometimes lots of time, you can truly become what you really are.’

‘I’ll change,’ he murmurs. ‘Into an animal, like you can?’

‘In time,’ she repeats. ‘You take the drink to start the process, to give it time to find you. And then, once in every generation a child from town is sacrificed in order for a committee member to fully change. And that, Jesse, means you can in theory, live forever.’

He stares back at her. ‘Why would you want to?’

‘To protect the town,’ she replies. ‘That’s all this was ever about. A town born from war and battle and blood and death, and grief and revenge. There were hill forts on either side. Many, many bloody battles were fought here. The earth drenched in blood. Generation after generation through time. There is a special energy here. No one knows what or why. Everyone has a theory. If you ask the vicar, he would say God, I suppose. Maybe Aaron would say the devil. Maybe Iris would say witchcraft, for she was one. Maybe everyone is driven by their own inner force, Jesse. Bob Rowan would say nature. I’d say loyalty and protection, family and blood, but it doesn’t matter what causes it or where the power comes from. What matters is what it can do.’

‘How do you do it?’ he asks quickly. ‘How do you change?’

‘I told you, you take the drink until it’s your time. When it’s your time, a child must be chosen.’

‘But not killed?’

‘The body dies,’ Margaret replies smoothly. ‘Paddy Finnis does not have a human body he can change back to. He was a sacrifice. But he lives on, like Horatio and the others.’

‘Horatio was a child?’

‘Not just any child,’ Margaret smiles. ‘My son.’

If Jesse could move, he would stagger backwards away from her. But he can’t. He is frozen to the spot. Trapped. ‘Wh-what?’

‘Ugh.’ She clicks her tongue and rolls her eyes. ‘It’s a long, long story. I was too old. It wasn’t supposed to happen. I’ve never been maternal, and he was handicapped, mentally. It was cruel, really. I suppose if you could have combined Hilda’s mind with his body, he would have been normal. But it wasn’t to be. He was sacrificed a long time ago. He’s far older than Hilda. He’s forgotten, Jesse. He’s not trapped. He’s forgotten who he was.’

‘Hilda’s not really your sister, is she?’

‘No, she’s my daughter. But as you’ve probably noticed, she looks older than me these days. She’s very good really. And we are more like sisters than mother and daughter.’

‘So, why? Why him and not her?’

‘You can only choose one child,’ she explains patiently. ‘Every generation, which loosely speaking is every thirty years, give or take. And Horatio… it was best for everyone. Best for him and me, and the town. And he’s happy, you’ve seen that yourself. He’s better off. And he’ll live forever unless something or someone kills him.’

‘Tell me about my mum,’ Jesse says, watching in horror as she unscrews the cap to the bottle.

She nods. ‘Of course, we have a deal. I’ll tell you whatever you want to know, but take a sip first, just one…’

Jesse doesn’t want to – she could be lying – but he doesn’t see he has a choice. He opens his mouth and she pushes the rim of the bottle between his lips. He draws in a sip, a taste – it’s warm and rich and earthy. It slips down his throat like silk, burning and fizzing. His pupils dilate and his mouth falls open.

‘You aunt was a sacrifice,’ purrs Margaret. ‘She became a cat. A beautiful dainty black cat.’

Margaret lowers the bottle and he swallows again, drinking down the residue. He is already craving it and supresses a whimper to beg for more.

‘Aaron killed her,’ Margaret explains. ‘He had his reasons. She rejoined the family, you see, grew close to your mother, her sister. Your mother in time began to, well, she was very much like you and your friends, Jesse. She became a problem, a threat and she was drawing in others. Your father, Nicky we called him back then, he was obsessed with Angie Radley. He’d do anything for her. Frankie Maxwell and Willow’s mother, Lizzie, also got mixed up in it all.’ She reaches out and caresses his cheek.

‘They were a lot like you and your friends, I suppose. Anyway, Aaron’s reasons for killing Carol-Anne were legitimate but not agreed on. The committee had not voted yet. It did, however, solve the problem. At least for a while. Your mother grieved – but then she picked up where she had left off, nosing around, making accusations. People laughed at her, of course. No one believed her. She was scorned and ridiculed. The town turned on her, Jesse, like it’s turned on you, until now. She was an outcast really.

‘Your father tried to look after her but she could not cope with motherhood, I’m sure you’ll remember. She did indeed run away. She intended on escaping town and raising her alarm somewhere else. Maybe she thought she would come back for you and your brothers. But she never made it out of town. At the border, Aaron caught up with her and killed her. He ate her and brought her bones here to share with us – to add to the ancient drink that’s coursing through your veins right now, Jesse.’

She lifts the knife and shows it to him. ‘Aaron killed your aunt and your mother because they were onto him. He acted alone. After that, the committee was uncertain, fragile and divided. Bob Rowan was appalled – he wanted Aaron cast out – they fought, then Bob left us. He hates us. Despises us all.

‘Iris was similar to Aaron, but in many ways it was all a sadistic game to her. And with Aaron and Bishop it’s all about survival and fulfilling the inner, primal need. With the rest of us it’s about the town, nothing else. Protecting and saving this town. Whatever that means. Whatever it takes.’

Margaret lifts his hands and presses the knife handle into his open palm. ‘Aaron has a taste now. He’s killed more since. Not sacrifices, not even people who are on to him, just anyone, strangers and passers-by. He will only get worse, more bloodthirsty and out of control. We need to stop him and the committee are in agreement, Jesse. You can do it with this knife. It’s almost as old as us. Take it and go and kill Aaron Mayfield.’

She closes his numb fingers around the handle and eases him gently from the centre of the room. He staggers, blinking, emerging from the spell but with just one more drop racing around inside of him, he knows it is too late for him. But he doesn’t have to be like them. He doesn’t have to join them. It’s horrible and terrible and wonderful that his mother is now a part of him.

He stumbles to the light surrounding the closed door then he pauses and looks back at the mayor. ‘Is that where you do it? That spot in the middle where it feels different.’

Margaret nods. ‘Yes. Generations of blood, bone, flesh and fear and sorrow have sunk into that earth. It ensnares you. It keeps you there. Then you drink from it.’

‘Not me,’ he says again, his voice a croak as he reaches weakly for the door. ‘Not again.’

‘For now, just worry about Aaron. Can you do it, Jesse? Because it’s you or him. You know that, don’t you? If you don’t kill him, he will kill you.’

‘Yeah. I know.’ Jesse pulls down the handle and warm light floods his eyes, making him feel dizzy. He lowers his head and moves sluggishly through it.

Willow scrambles her way out of the house. She is panicked beyond reason gripping the cloth bound book to her chest as she races down the stairs and flies at the still open door. She expects to run straight into him there but the coast is still clear. She feels something though. A shift in the atmosphere. A change around her. He knows.

She runs.

Ralph and Jaime finish the last crust of pizza and close up the cardboard boxes. Jaime wipes sauce from her chin and licks her fingers one by one. ‘Time to go?’ she asks Ralph.

He looks away, his chunky shoulders rising as he inhales slowly – then dropping as he breathes out – the weariest of sighs. ‘I think so.’

He stands and shoulders his backpack. He has checked it dozens of times and has added some food, more tools and spare clothes, just in case. Jaime doesn’t know why – she supposes he is preparing for any and every outcome. Before they head to the door, he passes her a baseball bat and she takes it silently, swallowing her horror and guilt.

She follows him to the door and they slip out silently, side by side. The town is dark and still and the air around them feels charged, like anything could happen. And something does almost instantly; a large brown owl swoops soundlessly down from the roof and startles them.

‘Shoo!’ Jaime cowers from it, recalling Bob Rowan’s relentless claws. She covers her head with her arms and looks up fearfully. The owl has flapped away but it is already turning around.

Ralph scowls at the house next door. ‘Eugenie,’ he mutters darkly and pulls the hammer from the side pocket of his bag. ‘Head for Paddy’s,’ he hisses at Jaime. ‘And be ready.’

Jaime grips the bat and nods grimly. The owl swoops again, but this time Jaime is ready for it. She swings the bat and feels the satisfying whomp as it collides with the feathered body. The bird spins in the air, wings flapping wildly, feathers spilling across the street.

‘Jaime Perry! Ralph Maxwell! What the hell do you think you’re doing?’

They spin around in shock.

‘Shit,’ Jaime whimpers.

‘Bishop,’ growls Ralph.

Their headteacher is stood at the end of the road, blocking the direction they need to go.

Ralph grabs Jaime by the arm and moves back. ‘Run,’ he says.

Jesse is running. Whatever was in that drink is setting his insides on fire. His muscles are exploding. He feels like is growing and changing – getting stronger and faster with every step, every breath.

He races from Hill Fort Farm and onto Hill Lane at top speed, hurtling through the pouring rain – untouched by the gusts of wind charging up and down the hillsides. He runs and does not think once about his brother waiting for him in a car park with a gun. He clutches the knife tightly and follows his instincts. He has to get to the treehouse. He has to kill Aaron Mayfield. Aaron Mayfield slaughtered his aunt and his mother and if he has his way, Jesse will be next.

He runs on towards town, past Black Woods where he swears he hears a low thin wail following his progress. He runs faster and outruns it. All of his senses are amplified. He can smell the coffee someone is drinking in the caravan park on Hill Lane and even the engine oil on their hands. He can hear the bins being scraped out in a kitchen on Town Road as he tears across the fields behind the town hall, towards Black Hare Lane.

Weighed down by the book, Willow staggers blindly through the back alley adjacent to Black Hare Lane. The grass is so long and whips and twists around her ankles, her knees buckling with almost every step – the book feeling heavier and heavier in her grasp.

She is almost at the gate when she hears the thud of great paws landing nimbly behind her and although she cannot stop, or look around, she knows it is him. Mayfield. He snarls and hot meaty breath coats her neck and pushes her forward. She scrambles on, tripping and falling and rising and running in a chaotic chain of movements. He bears down on her but in the moment she feels her breath snag in terror in her throat and the creature’s breath brushing her hair it suddenly falls back.

Willow keeps going, lengthening the distance between them and when she finally reaches Paddy’s open gate, she clings to it, her chest heaving in panic and she turns and looks back. She sees a large dark grey wolf slinking back the way it came, picking up speed steadily, then breaking into a run. Breath held in horror that prickles across her flesh, Willow watches it vanish into the shadows.

Thanks for reading!

Please feel free to leave a comment letting me know what you thought of this latest chapter.

COMING NEXT THURSDAY THE FINAL CHAPTER!: Chapter Thirty “The Fight”

Black Hare Valley: Chapter Nineteen “The Meeting”

September 4, 2025September 2, 2025 ~ ChanAtkins ~ 1 Comment

Willow is the only one who comes to see him after school and Jesse can guess why. The smell of burning thatch has reached Black Hare Road and he learns from Willow that if Iris Cotton did give Paddy the book to help him, then she has been severely punished for it.

Willow explains that she has to be quick and discreet and Jesse can imagine the committee members closing in on them. Bishop, Hewlett and Gordon all work at the school. Perhaps they have been warned off, blackmailed or threatened? He nods and waits for Willow to unload the torrent of information he can sense thrumming inside of her.

She can’t stop checking over her shoulder. ‘They’ve burned her house down. Again,’ she adds for impact. ‘Jaime saw her this morning while Ralph was here. I saw a white hare run down the High Street and Jaime said one came inside Iris’s gate then ran around to the back garden. When Jaime followed it, she found Iris there, sweeping.’

‘She can turn into a hare like Mayfield can turn into some sort of wolf-thing,’ Jesse says because he knows it is true. Having already shown Willow the violent claw marks down his back, he watches her nod in white-faced horror.

‘And so maybe she tried to warn Paddy,’ Willow goes on, grimly. ‘She admitted that she put the book there and so far all Jaime’s translations have come up with spells or poems, maybe, weird stuff all written in Latin.’

‘Anything about the treehouse?’ Jesse wonders. ‘The wolf-thing couldn’t come in the garden and Mayfield still hasn’t come here to find me.’

Willow gulps nervously. ‘Yes. She translated something about a protection spell, a safe circle or something. Maybe that’s all Paddy had time to work out; how to make it safe out here. The committee are closing in though,’ she adds softly, looking over her shoulder again. ‘We all got cornered by Mr Bishop and Mr Hewlett today. Asking where you were, accusing us of lying, that kind of thing.’

‘I can’t stay here forever,’ he tells her helplessly. ‘I’ll go crazy, Willow. Did Jaime find out anything on my mum, or Carol-Anne?’

Willow shrugs. ‘I don’t know. Mark arrived to walk her home from school so I don’t think she got the chance.’

Jesse grimaces. ‘That’s just creepy.’

‘I know. And Ralph’s mum met him too – said something about a few hours work at Hill Fort Farm and off they went.’

‘Keeping us apart,’ he says and Willow smiles at him.

‘Well, it won’t work. And you’re right, you can’t stay here forever. I think we need to do this properly, Jesse.’

He frowns. ‘How do you mean?’

‘Go to the station in the morning hand yourself in. I’ll get Billy to meet you there.’

Jesse ponders it and realises it makes a horrible kind of sense. In daylight, with his family there, what can Mayfield do?

‘Maybe,’ he whispers.

Willow looks around again, her expression half-cautious, half-curious. ‘Jesse,’ she says, ‘I’m sorry I doubted you to begin with.’ She is sitting beside him with her legs dangling from the platform. He looks at her, not understanding. ‘I really did think you were hassling Paddy. Maybe I was a bit jealous too. You know, that he seemed to have a new friend.’ She glances away, her fingers twiddling. ‘I’ve never been that good at making friends myself. Maybe I was a bit, you know, possessive of him.’

Jesse grins. It feels blissful on his tensed features. ‘Hey, I can’t blame you. And I did bully him before. All of you.’

She exhales softly, her shoulders lowering. ‘Yeah, but I kind of get why now. Seems like you’ve had a lot of people bullying you.’

Jesse is not sure so he shrugs.

She pauses, swinging her legs and looking at the sky while her hands knit together in her lap. Then she looks back at him. ‘Can I ask you though? Paddy never, I mean, he never mentioned the book to you? Or spells? Or the committee? In any way?’

He feels her intense gaze. Everything about Willow is intense – her attention, her individuality, her scorn, her clothes – he realises she is as much an outcast as he is.

He shakes his head. ‘No. He never said anything about the book or spells. All I can say is he seemed… energetic, maybe.’

‘Energetic?’

‘Yeah, like focused. Excited, sort of. A bit like he had a secret, if I think about it now. Maybe something he wanted to talk about but just hadn’t decided who to tell yet. Was he like that with you? Different than normal?’

She nods. ‘Yeah if I think about it, he was a bit like that. I mean, he always had this thirst for knowledge, this determination to learn and know everything. But yeah, it seemed like he was super focused, brighter than normal but to be honest? I thought it was because of you. And I was jealous of it. But who knows?’ She shrugs and swings her legs. ‘It could have been both. Or neither.’

Jesse wants to ask what she thinks about the black hare, what she thinks about all of it, and he wants to ask if Paddy ever said anything about him to her, anything good, but he doesn’t. He enjoys the relative peace and normality of a friend sat beside him in a treehouse and soon she goes home.

Jesse feels impatient sat in the treehouse with only his wounds and a torch for company. Mr Finnis has been providing food and drink but he’s worried about popping out to him too often – he doesn’t want to draw attention to Jesse’s hiding place.

Jesse settles on his belly and feels the scratches pulsating on his back. He stares at the quiet blackness of the garden and longs for something to happen. He fixates on the shadows, hoping to see one move, hoping to see a black shape emerge… A sign, maybe. Something to tell them what to do.

It’s not quite dark when he hears a, ‘Psstt!’ from the bottom of the garden. Jesse stares into the shadows, trying to decipher shape or form. His stomach contracts as his skin prickles in warning. Then,

‘Jesse! Hey bud, it’s just us!’ A pause. ‘You there?’

Jesse is momentarily relieved – it’s Steven and Dominic, but then his back is up again. He hasn’t seen them since Mayfield broke up their fight. What the hell do they want and how the hell did they know he was here? Maybe they want to talk to him about Mayfield blackmailing them to take the book?

Feeling vaguely hopeful, he steps uneasily onto the rope ladder, gripping the wall as it sways under his weight. He can see them now, lingering at the gate and he calls out a gruff, ‘Hang on,’ before descending the ladder.

Jesse meets them at the gate. Steven is smoking a cigarette and Dominic just stands there with his oversized hands stuffed inside the pockets of his grimy denim jacket.

‘What?’ he hisses at them.

Steven slips a conspiratorial arm around his neck and starts to walk. ‘Need to talk to you, man. Where the hell you been? You’re a wanted man for fucks sake! I mean, what the hell?’

Jesse’s movements are stiff but somehow he has allowed Steven to propel him out of the gate. ‘Complicated,’ he replies, looking over his shoulder. He catches Dominic’s eye but the bigger boy just looks away miserably.

‘Yeah, I bet, I bet,’ says Steven, grinning at him. He smells of smoke. Its suddenly too strange and Jesse wriggles free of Steven’s arm. ‘Whoa, what mate?’

‘Nothing.’ Jesse looks around anxiously, his senses on high alert. He shrugs at Steven’s confused face. ‘What do you want, Steven?’

‘Just to hang out,’ he shrugs, finishing his cigarette and chucking it down. ‘I thought we were mates.’

Jesse is tempted to tell him the truth, that they have never been friends, not really. They just grew up in the same building and drifted towards each other to escape their equally horrible parents. They linked up with dumb Dominic and passed their anger and frustration on to anyone weaker than them. It disgusts Jesse now – what they did, who he was when he was with them. But he just wants them gone – not another fight.

‘Yeah, we are,’ he tells Steven to shut him up. ‘It’s just stuff. Complicated.’

But suddenly they are gone. Jesse almost misses their exit. One minute they were right there – Dominic looking unhappy and scared and Steven looked mock-friendly as usual and he looked away, just for a moment, just to scour the darkness, just for a moment, just to check and in that second they have vanished. Drifted away.

It’s eerie but Jesse doesn’t have time to ponder it for long. He steps towards the garden and bumps into something instead, something that wasn’t there a moment ago. His eyes drift slowly, fearfully up the thick barrel chest, tightly contained inside a policeman’s uniform, and fix in horror on Sergeant Mayfield’s unsmiling face.

A choked sound escapes his lips then the police baton is shoved sideways into his neck and he is slammed back into the fence behind. He feels it give, hears a crack in the old wood. Mayfield’s weight is behind the baton and the fence creaks again. Jesse uses his last breath to force his body backwards, kicking out at the rotten slats behind him then gasping as he feels it give way completely.

Wood splinters and cracks in the air around him and he’s falling weightlessly and free of the dreaded baton. He can breathe again, though he’s instantly winded when his body hits the ground with a thud.

Mayfield rears up and over him, face twisted in rage, eyes glowing – but he does not advance. He can’t. Jesse scrambles backwards, his heels digging into dirt, his hands splayed into grass. Mayfield glares at him in pure hatred and then lets out a roar, sending strings of saliva whipping around his twisted face.

Jesse spins onto all fours and crawls, then staggers to his feet, and runs for the treehouse. He can hear nothing but his own terrified breath rasping in his throat and his legs are shaking as he scrambles up the ladder and hauls himself inside. He whips around and stares at the fence but Mayfield has gone.

Margaret Sumner carries six dead pheasants by the neck into the kitchen, three in each hand, and dumps them on the table. She brushes her hands off on a nearby tea towel then smiles lovingly down at Horatio, her faithful Labrador. It’s a cool night and he has arranged himself beside the Aga, stretched out on one of his blankets with a chewed and misshapen tennis ball beside him.

‘Good boy, Horatio,’ she says kindly, before gathering two bottles of wine from the sideboard. ‘You are a very good boy.’ He looks up with adoring eyes and his thick tail thumps against the floor. ‘I always knew you would be,’ she adds softly before leaving the room.

Her guests have arrived on time and are already gathered in the drawing room. As it’s not an official neighbourhood watch meeting, Catherine Aster is not present. Margaret sent a message earlier telling her the urgent meeting had been cancelled. Margaret strides in with the bottles of wine and takes a moment to survey the group.

Aaron is agonised, she notes with some amusement. He prowls around the edge of the group with a whisky already on the go and his hackles up under his shirt. He paces like an animal, more beast than man tonight. He lets his instincts rule him, she notes then looks at the two women, Eugenie and Sylvia. Separated by generations yet so similar in outlook and mannerisms.

They are sat beside each other in the fireside armchairs. Each with legs crossed and hands resting demurely on the arm rests. Eugenie is small and sharp and made up of hard angles and natural suspicion – nothing gets past her and like Aaron, she knows everyone’s secrets. The only difference is, Aaron knows hers thanks to the extra eyes he places around town.

Margaret watches her now, eyeing her long neat fingers and wonders how many small and pointless items she has stolen over the decades. She smiles a little – compulsive stealing was after all, what got Eugenie into trouble as a young girl.

And Sylvia, the newest member until the arrival of Catherine. Margaret admires her haughtiness, the old-fashioned no-nonsense attitude that does little to quell the seeping sexuality of her. She has cast a powerful spell over Greg Roberts, that’s for sure. But none of that is on the agenda this evening.

Margaret’s eyes track over to Greg who is deep in conversation with Neville and Edward. Though talking and gesturing wildly, Greg cannot prevent his gaze from drifting almost constantly back to Sylvia. Neville appears calm but slightly nervous, as is his default setting. He likes to appease people, stay on neutral ground and everyone’s good sides, so he always listens attentively to every word said and nods and smiles in all the right places. Margaret knows that Aaron has several interesting videos of his late night clinches with seventeen-year-old Nathan Cotton.

Edward, meanwhile, wears his usual expression of thinly veiled disgust, but he has a new, replenished air about him too. He eyes them all as scathingly as normal and his top lip is almost always raised in a sneer, as if the stain of working with children all day cannot be washed away, but he does seem brighter tonight, she thinks, louder, more alive. Margaret wonders if he is enjoying his new, elevated, elongated life.

She supposes she feels a bit like mother to all of them. A mother welcoming them to the flock, teaching, advising, nurturing and punishing until they are all ready to take the next step. Her gaze drifts to the large windows and she supposes at one point Bob Rowan was the father of the group and Iris Cotton, the grandmother. She feels a twinge of regret but it doesn’t last long. They have too much to discuss. There is a lively atmosphere in the room; a taut tension sparkling in the air. She senses excitement, fear and frustration and she thrives on it all.

She places the bottles on the small fireside table and begins to twist the cork out of the red. ‘Red or white?’ she calls out, her firm harsh voice instantly cutting through their chatter and silencing them. ‘Grab a glass and drink. We’ve got a lot to talk about.’

Eugenie is the first to hold out a glass. ‘Red please, Margaret.’

‘Oh and for me too,’ says Sylvia.

Margaret fills their glasses while the men collect theirs from the sideboard. There is a series of thumps heard from upstairs and Margaret rolls her eyes at her guests. ‘Hilda. She’s in the playroom. Aaron? Red or white?’

He arrives silently at her side, broad and tall and white-haired, a mountain of a man capable of just about anything. She finds his cruelty and rage endlessly exciting. He grunts for red and she fills his glass.

Edward, Neville and Greg choose white and everyone settles down, only Margaret and Aaron remain standing. Sylvia has her notebook and pen on her lap ready to make notes.

‘It’s been quite a week,’ Margaret addresses them. ‘Quite a challenging one. Also, quite an interesting one. We’ll start with Iris Cotton. Any news?’

‘I heard her grand-daughter took her in,’ Eugenie speaks with authority. ‘I let Nathan go after his Rhyme Time once he’d heard the news. He was heading home. Not long after that someone said they saw Iris going into Sarah-Jane’s house on Maze Lane.’

‘Aaron, can you confirm?’

‘Yes,’ he says with certainty. ‘She’s there. They have a spare room.’

‘Unhurt?’

He nods. ‘Nothing can hurt that old witch.’

A snigger moves around the room. Margaret smiles in empathy. ‘Quite. And the cottage?’

Aaron grunts. ‘I was there earlier. It’s just rubble. A few incomplete walls and that’s it. No roof left. I caught a couple of local reprobates there smashing glass for fun.’

‘Yes well, we’ll come to that in a moment,’ says Margaret. ‘But the house is badly damaged and can’t be salvaged?’

He shakes his head. ‘No. It’s gone. And everything in it.’

Another murmur drifts among them. Margaret can feel their excitement rising.

‘And do you want to tell us about the boys you caught, Aaron?’

He sniffs, his eyes dark with anger. ‘Dominic Robeson, the half-wit from the caravan park and Steven Davies, the thug from Taylor Drive, both used to be in a gang with Jesse Archer. At one point, the three of them were always together causing trouble. Not so much now. Anyway, I tried to use the boys to lure Archer from the Finnis garden.’

‘Tried to?’ Edward cannot hide the ridicule in his voice.

Aaron glares at him. ‘It worked. I had that little bastard but he broke the bloody fence down. I lost him.’

This time there is a collective sigh.

‘Again,’ says Edward, unhelpfully.

Aaron growls.

‘Now, now.’ Margaret holds up a calming hand. ‘There’s no need for that, gentleman. Jesse Archer is a smart boy and he’s not acting alone, let’s remember. He has others helping him but we will get him eventually. We’ll get him in custody and bring him here.’

‘Then what?’ asks Sylvia. ‘You can’t… You know. It isn’t time.’

‘I realise that,’ replies Margaret. ‘He’s a very lucky boy and he doesn’t even know it. We still need him here though. He knows far too much and we need to set him straight. Give him a chance.’

‘A chance for what?’ wonders Eugenie, looking unsure. ‘Joining us?’

‘Maybe, yes,’ smiles Margaret, enjoying the look of disgust on Aaron’s face. ‘In years to come of course and that will be very much up to him. We should be a group of nine, remember.’

‘True, but that does seem risky.’ Eugenie pushes her glasses up her nose and shifts in her chair.

‘You could let him go,’ Neville suggests with a weak smile. ‘Like you did with his mother? Wouldn’t that be better for everyone? If he just left town?’

‘I think he’d come back,’ replies Margaret and Aaron nods in agreement. ‘And as for the rest of them, they’re in too deep. Plotting and digging. If he left too, it would only spur them on.’

‘So, what is it you’re suggesting?’ asks Edward.

‘Our best bet is to weaken them,’ she says. ‘To split them up and tire them out. To keep them busy, or scared or distracted. We need to put water on the fire, in other words. They’re all very different and different techniques will work for each, but that’s my suggestion. They are weaker divided. Weaker confused. Weaker scared. They are, after all, just children. They’ll give up. It will not be worth it to them to continue. They’ll have to accept that Paddy is gone. And then soon they will forget like everyone else.’

She looks around at them, smiling pleasantly while her words sink in. This is the way Margaret envisions it. After all, it’s not the first time they’ve been through this and it’s not the first time a fuss has been made about a missing child. She does agree with Aaron on one thing; it really should have been Jesse Archer who went missing. No one would have bothered to look for him. But Iris Cotton had to interfere. Revenge, she supposes, or maybe just good old-fashioned mischief. Iris always did like to set the cat among the pigeons. It doesn’t matter now. They had no choice and what’s done is done.

‘So,’ she continues smoothly when no voice rises to challenge her. ‘We need a way to get him away from that garden so Aaron can arrest him for the break-in. The paperwork to take him into care is already prepared and signed by his father. He’s very easy to persuade when he’s drunk and can barely see the hand in front of his face, let alone what he’s signing. So, everything is ready. We just need the boy.’

‘You could always light another fire?’ Sylvia suggests with a shrug. She looks around at the others. ‘Just a small one in the garden. He’d have to move then, wouldn’t he?’

It’s a risky proposition but Margaret quite likes it. As long as the fire doesn’t get out of control, it could work. It could be the fastest and simplest solution.

As if reading her mind, Aaron nods and say, ‘I could get Dominic and Steven to light it.’

‘You could,’ nods Margaret. ‘And you’d be on hand and ready to catch him when he runs.’

‘Once he’s out of that bloody garden he’ll never outrun me,’ says Aaron brashly and Margaret knows he is right.

She glances around at the rest of them. ‘Well then, we’ll try that tomorrow. I’ll leave it in your capable hands, Aaron. Call me as soon as you have him. Now, on to the rest of the group. Eugenie?’

Eugenie sits up straight, knees pressed together. ‘Charlotte and Ralph have settled in well next door to me,’ she reports. ‘On the very first day Charlotte offered to prune my apple tree for me. She’s already done a lot to the garden. She never stops, does she?’

Margaret smiles fondly. ‘No, she’s a force of nature that one.’

‘And the boy seems well-behaved,’ Eugenie adds. ‘I think I’ll enjoy having them as neighbours.’

‘I’ll be keeping Ralph busy here,’ says Margaret. ‘He’s always keen to help his mother and provide. He’s just like her really. A hard worker. Of course, we’re all relieved he didn’t take after his father.’

‘I wouldn’t be too sure about that,’ remarks Edward with raised eyebrows. ‘He might be a hard worker like his mum but he’s got the same nosy streak his old man had if you ask me.’

Margaret nods in regret. ‘Possibly. Possibly that could be Archer’s bad influence. But we do need to keep an eye on him. He’s such a lovely child, it would be a real shame to see him led astray.’

There are nods from everyone. Ralph Maxwell is just the kind of boy Black Hare Velly thrives on nurturing.

‘Jaime, the new girl,’ Edward goes on. ‘She shows a lot of promise and is very smart but I’m afraid she’s mixed up in all this too and her teachers have seen her concentration nosedive as the week has gone on.’

‘Mark is concerned, I can tell,’ nods Eugenie, who often likes to end her day with a quick sherry in the Hare and Hound. ‘He and Catherine will keep an eye on her. I see them as fair but strict parents.’

‘Willow Harrison’s parents are not though,’ sighs Greg. ‘And I think we know why.’

Margaret knows he views them as nothing more than godless, misguided pagans and permissive hippy types but she’s not too concerned herself. It stands to reason that Willow would act out the most. Paddy was her best and only friend.

‘She was very confrontational with me,’ Neville adds sadly as Edward shakes his head slowly and gravely. ‘It’s her I fear Archer has his claws into the most.’

‘Her mother was the same,’ nods Greg, his expression dour. ‘I’ve been tempted to encourage her to leave town enough times. Is there a chance she could be fuelling Willow? Her and Nick Archer were thick as thieves last time.’

‘No,’ Aaron shakes his head with certainty. ‘She doesn’t remember. None of them do.’

‘We’ll keep an eye on Willow,’ nods Margaret looking at Aaron. He nods back and sips his whiskey. His eyes, of course, are everywhere. ‘But yes, this does all come back to Jesse Archer, which is why most of this can be resolved and ironed out once I have him here with me. Like I said, we weaken them, distract them and divide them. The others will drift away and I have every confidence I can get through to the Archer boy. Iris has been dealt with. It’s just one last loose end to tie up.’

‘What about Bob Rowan?’ asks Greg. ‘I thought I saw him at the fire.’

Margaret waves a hand dismissively. ‘We don’t have to worry about him. He didn’t want to be on the committee anymore and that’s his right. As long as he keeps to his side and stays out of our business, I don’t see a problem.’

There is a collective sigh of relief and contentment. Only Aaron still seems riled up – but that’s nothing new. When the others start talking about Edward and how he’s been feeling since his transition, Margaret positions herself beside Aaron and waits for him to acknowledge her.

He does so with a reluctant grunt. Sometimes she thinks he is more beast than man and always has been.

‘All of this could have been avoided if it had been Archer, not Finnis,’ he says in a low voice.

Margaret does not hide her irritation. It’s like listening to a broken record. ‘Oh, Aaron, do get over it. What’s done is done and you know we had no choice. Blame Iris, not me.’

‘Oh, I do. I do.’

‘You’ve got to calm down, Aaron. You’re letting your mask slip too often. I’m going to have to do a lot of damage control with the Archer boy when he’s here, thanks to you.’

Aaron glares at her, his lips pressed and trembling. She reaches out and clasps his wrist in her hand.

‘Aaron, forgive me, but you know I always speak my mind. You have a temper. And you like drama. That is not a good combination. In fact, it is your weakness.’

She watches the anger flare in his blue eyes. He feels rigid with rage and his muscles are tensed under her touch but she is not afraid. ‘It’s all right,’ she tells him soothingly. ‘Everyone has a weakness. That’s yours.’

‘And what’s yours?’ he asks in a tight, thin voice.

Margaret smiles. ‘Why, I should think that is very obvious, Aaron. It’s this town, of course.’

Jaime looks up with a start when someone knocks on her door. The entire investigation is spread out on her bed and it’ll take time she maybe doesn’t have to clear away – or she could call out – maybe it’s just a knock to say that dinner is ready. She checks the time – it’s probably that.

She gathers up the notepaper, the timeline, the translated notes and the photos and bundles them into her school backpack. Hiding them is becoming a constant source of worry for her. She can’t lock her door when she leaves her room – so how is she to know that they won’t come looking? Jaime used to trust her mum implicitly but she can’t help feeling that trust has been damaged by Black Hare Valley and the secrets it holds.

‘Yes?’ she calls out, zipping the bag and shoving it under her bed. She grabs a book from the bedside table and flips it open on her pillow.

‘Jaime, it’s Mum.’

She gets up reluctantly and opens the door, already dreading her mother’s concerned and cautious expression. Her mother smiles weakly. She looks pale and winces as she rubs both hands across her taut belly.

‘You okay, Mum? I thought you had a meeting?’

‘They cancelled it last minute and I really don’t feel like cooking so I thought me and you could grab fish and chips from down the road and have a nice walk?’

Jaime stiffens. What if it is a guise to get her away from her backpack?

‘Okay, sure.’ She smiles as breezily as she can. ‘Can I just get changed?’ She feels weak with relief that she hasn’t yet changed out of her uniform.

‘Of course. I’ll wait downstairs for you.’

Jaime closes the door and panics. She can’t take the bag with her; it’ll look odd. She can’t leave it under the bed either; Mark could come in and see it. She opens the wardrobe – a messy splurge of colours and textures bursts out at her, but again, Mark could easily search it. Finally, she opens the bag and takes it all out. She needs to make it smaller. Make it fit somewhere else. The treehouse she thinks with certainty.

For now, Jaime uses the large timeline of events to envelope all the other pieces in. She rolls it up until it’s a tight, neat tube then she slips it inside one of her wellington boots and pushes the boots to the back of the wardrobe. Her heart is beating painfully because it still doesn’t feel like enough.

But when she joins her mother downstairs she is less concerned. The bar is heaving; Mark and Tahlia look overworked and stressed.

‘Don’t they need your help?’ Jaime wonders as they head for the kitchen and the back door.

‘I’ve worked all day,’ her mum replies with a weary smile. ‘I just need a breather to catch up with my girl. They’ll be fine.’

‘All right.’

They head out into the dark garden, then turn through the gate onto Lupin Lane, before making their way to the High Street. It’s quiet and the air still smells of burnt thatch. Jaime recalls the whispers she heard all day at school and at the pub. The gossip is that Iris Cotton’s house burned down because she’s a very old and forgetful lady. She probably left something dangling too close to a candle or made a mistake with the log burner or the stove. Nothing remains, they say, such a shame, one of the oldest houses in the valley, they say.

Only Jaime seems to know that it has burned down before, when Agnes Salter was accused of being a witch. Were they related, she wonders, did Iris marry a Cotton before she had her daughter? Was her maiden name Salter? And even more worrying, was her house burned down on purpose? As a punishment for helping Paddy and admitting such to Jaime? Or perhaps she gave him the book to place him in harm?

Jaime shudders. Not for the first time she wonders if she herself is in danger. She doesn’t have much information for Jesse and she feels bad about it. She found a newspaper story from the year Carol-Anne Radley vanished, and that was hard enough to come by. She spent lunch and second break in the school library where she was almost about to give up until she found a pile of old newspapers collecting dust in the history section.

A quick rummage revealed Black Hare Valley Times – a paper that was apparently no longer in existence. It was a thin publication mostly full of adverts, upcoming events and a few mild local news stories. Jaime has the clipping in her tube of evidence. A front page story from the year 1966, ‘Have You Seen Carol-Anne?’ It seemed that no one had and no one ever did again.

As Jaime’s mum steps into the fish and chip shop, she can’t stop thinking about it. Another missing child. The same town. No answers. Does anyone even remember it? We have to bring it up, she decides, no matter what danger that brings. She reasons that they are already in danger to some extent, so why stop now? She’s thinking about it as her mother orders the food and makes friendly small talk with the other customers. Should she tell her mum? Not about all of it, but some of it?

Mark has been weird with her again – tense, edgy – accusing her once more of knowing where Jesse Archer is hiding out. Jaime doesn’t know how much more she can take. She feels she will crack like an egg, mess oozing out everywhere, secrets and lies revealed all over the place. But then she thinks, what is the worst that can happen?

Her mother carries the food to the park and they sit on a bench overlooking the pond. And after a few bites, her mother says, ‘Mark and I are quite worried about you, darling.’

Jaime doesn’t look at her mother as she chews and swallows her first chip then says, ‘Mum, did you know another kid vanished from here in 1966? Carol-Anne Radley. She was fourteen too. No one ever found out what happened to her.’

Willow is quiet throughout dinner. While her parents are discussing a novel they both recently read, she is trying to work out the best way to tackle her mum about Angie and Carol-Anne Radley. She is desperate to question her mother and keen to examine the look on her face when she either remembers or doesn’t. The need to know is under her skin making her want to tear at it with her nails, but she is afraid.

She’s already let it slip to Mr Hewlett that she has seen Jesse since he escaped custody and the fear of what that could bring is churning her stomach and making it impossible to eat. As she pushes her mashed potato around the plate, she has to bite her lip to stop her from screaming. She is also wary of upsetting her mother. Her mother has what her father sometimes describes as ‘a nervous constitution’ which, he has explained to Willow before, sometimes leads to her getting swallowed up by the blues. Willow knows this because when she looks back on her childhood there are patches of time when her mother was absent. She didn’t go anywhere physically – in fact, for sometimes months at a time she was unable to leave their home – but she did go somewhere in her own head.

During those times her father often warned Willow not to upset or worry her mother, to be extra good, extra considerate until her mother was better able to cope again. Willow has never understood where the nerves or the blues come from. She often wonders if she might suffer from them herself, one way or the other. Although nerves for her often manifests itself in anger, she can admit that the anger does sometimes lead her down a dark and lonely path.

Paddy saw that in her, she thinks now, and he would always gently pull her back. He wouldn’t ask her what was wrong, and he wouldn’t try to cheer her up or distract her. But he would make her come outside with him. Just for walks, sometimes even at night to look at the stars. She misses that about Paddy the most. His way of just knowing.

Finally, her father leaves the table to answer the phone and Willow jumps to her feet and starts to help clear the table. It’s now or never, she thinks, and although she is loath to push her mother into a state of nervousness, she has to at least try.

‘You grew up here, right Mum?’

Her mother is at the kitchen sink swirling Fairy Liquid into the running water. Willow hears her sigh softly as she circles a hand in the basin. Tiny bubbles rise in the air around her.

‘Yes, sweetie.’

Willow opens her mouth then pauses. Suddenly a hundred questions want to erupt out of her. What was it like? Why did you stay? Why didn’t you move away when you were old enough? Who were your friends? What kind of trouble did you get into? She wonders then why they have never talked about these things before. But then she supposes it is because her mother has never wanted to.

Her mother looks over her shoulder, frowning gently. ‘You okay?’

Willow clears her throat. It is now or never. She can’t think of a subtle way to ask and if she leaves it much longer, her dad will get off the phone and come back in. She knows he moved to the valley when he was twenty, so whatever went on when her mother was a teenager, has nothing to do with him.

‘Um.’ She arrives at her mother’s side and pushes her hair behind her ears. ‘You never talk about it much,’ she says, glancing anxiously towards the door. She can hear her father laughing on the phone.

‘Don’t I?’ Lizzie Harrison looks slightly perturbed as she turns off the taps and starts lowering dishes and cutlery into the bubbly water. ‘I suppose I assumed you wouldn’t be interested. Why? Something you want to talk about, love?’

‘What were you like?’ Willow bursts out suddenly. She knows she should get straight to the point but suddenly she really wants to know. ‘Have you got any photos?’

Her mother laughs. ‘Oh, I expect there are some lying about somewhere. I’ll dig some out for you if you like.’

‘Yes please.’

‘Curious, all of a sudden?’ Her mother side-eyes her, still smiling.

Willow shrugs. ‘Yeah, maybe. Like, were you like me?’

‘I was a lot like you,’ Lizzie laughs, rubbing vigorously at a bowl.

‘In what ways?’

‘Um, well, I guess I didn’t like authority much. You definitely get that from me.’

Willow nods and waits for more, but although her mother is not exactly shutting her down or ignoring her, she’s starting to get the sense that she isn’t particularly keen on revisiting the past either.

‘Anything else?’ she urges. ‘Did you get in trouble at school? What was your favourite subject?’ Suddenly, there are so many things she wants to know.

She watches her mother tuck loose black hair behind her ears just as Willow did moments before, and she watches her mother frowning slightly as her teeth pull gently at her lower lip. Her mother is thinking, she can tell. Her mother is working out what to say.

‘Anything arty, I guess,’ she replies with a soft chuckle and a shake of her head. ‘I don’t know. Anything to do with music or art, or drama. I liked those things. Same as you really.’

‘Who were your friends?’ Willow can see the questions are getting her nowhere so she goes straight for the jugular.

Lizzie shifts her position, lifting one foot and then the other, then shaking her hair back and wincing slightly before offering up another smile. Willow stares at her, her eyes slowly narrowing.

‘Um. Well, let me think.’

‘Were you friends with Jesse Archer’s dad, by any chance?’

Willow can see the question has shocked her mother. Her dark eyes blink rapidly and her tongue runs across her lips while her cheeks gently flush. Willow wants to grab hold of her and shake her.

‘Did he say that? Where did you hear that?’

‘I didn’t, I was just wondering.’

‘Willow.’ Her mother drops the dish she is holding, wipes her hands off on a tea towel and turns to face her daughter. Her expression has now settled into one of stern suspicion.

‘What? I’m just asking who you were friends with when you were my age. You’ve never told me stuff like that.’

‘There’s nothing to tell.’

‘So, were you then?’

‘What?’

Willow resists the urge to roll her eyes and suspects her mother of stalling. ‘Friends with Nick Archer?’

‘No,’ Lizzie says firmly. ‘Not really, and I do want to know where you heard that, Willow. You know you’re supposed to tell us if you see that boy, don’t you? The police are looking for him.’

Willow crosses her arms defensively. ‘I haven’t seen him,’ she replies evenly. ‘He told me ages ago. He was teasing me about it actually and I just didn’t like to ask you at the time. But is it true, Mum? Did you hang around Nick Archer and what about Angie and Carol-Anne Radley? Remember them?’

Now it’s her mother’s turn to open her mouth then close it again before anything can emerge. Willow watches her eyes widen before she turns back to the sink and plunges her hands back under the water.

‘Mum? Why are you being so cagey?’

‘Because it was a long time ago, that’s why.’

‘So? What’s the big deal?’

‘Nothing,’ she shrugs irritably and glances over her shoulder. ‘Just, you know. It was a long time ago. I was a kid, who didn’t know any better.’

‘So, you did then? And the Radley’s too? Angie and Carol-Anne, right?’

Lizzie winces again as if in pain. ‘I don’t… I’m not sure…’

‘Jesus Christ, Mum, it’s a simple question!’

Her mother slams a plate down onto the side. ‘You don’t have to take that tone with me, young lady. I can’t help it if I can’t remember. It was a very long time ago and I haven’t thought about any of those people since…’ She frowns heavily and suddenly reminds Willow of a petulant chid.

‘You’re saying you’ve forgotten?’ Willow lowers her voice and tries a gentler tone.

Her mother nods and swallows. ‘Yes. I had forgotten.’

‘Do you remember now?’ she asks gently. ‘Who you hung out with? What sort of stuff you got up to?’

‘No, not really…’ Lizzie waves a hand, sending foam across the floor tiles. ‘Willow, I’m getting a bit of a headache. Perhaps you could finish this up for me?’

‘Okay, but seriously Mum. Jesse’s dad said you were all friends. You and him, and Angie and Carol-Anne. Do you remember Carol-Anne? Could you maybe check your photos?’

Her mother nods and wipes her hands down her legs. She won’t make eye contact with her daughter as she turns and heads for the door.

‘I’ll see if I can find them in a bit,’ she says as she goes. ‘I just need to lie down a bit first.’

‘Okay, Mum. Thanks.’

Willow is left alone in the kitchen with the dirty dishes and her ruffled thoughts. She starts to wash up, her mind spinning as she tries to determine her mother’s reactions. Were they genuine? Had her mother genuinely forgotten who her teenage friends were, and if so, how disturbing and strange is that? Or was she lying for some reason?

Willow cannot decide what is worse.

Thanks for reading!

Please feel free to leave a comment letting me know what you thought of this latest chapter.

NOTE: Please remember this is NOT the finished version of Black Hare Valley Book 1. This book has not been to my editor yet or even my beta readers. There will be typos, grammatical mistakes, and sentences that need rewriting.

COMING NEXT THURSDAY: Chapter Twenty “The Prisoner”

Black Hare Valley: Chapter Eighteen “The Committee”

August 28, 2025August 27, 2025 ~ ChanAtkins ~ 2 Comments

Willow, Jaime and Ralph trail dejectedly through the double doors, past the milling children enjoying their break. Edward Bishop leads the way, striding briskly in his slightly too snug brown suit. His faded loafers slap against the bleached floor and he glances back occasionally to be sure they are following.

When they reach his office he opens the door and holds it; nodding at them to go in, they are forced to duck under his sweat-stained armpit, one by one. Neville Hewlett comes in last, closes the door softly and leans against it. He wears light grey trousers and a dark green polo shirt. Casual and friendly, he attempts to offer their nervous faces a reassuring smile.

Good cop, bad cop, Edward thinks, irritably, how cliched.

‘Sit,’ he commands and they obey, Willow Harrison pulling out a plastic chair first and plopping down with her arms folded defensively. Ralph gestures for Jaime to take the other available seat and goes red in the face as he lifts a third chair from a small stack by the door, then positions it next to Jaime’s.

Once all three are seated, Edward Bishop walks purposefully around his desk, keeping his narrowed eyes on them the whole time. He can smell their fear and he likes it. He licks his lips very slowly, savouring the taste, taking his time to fully coat the thicker lower lip with a trail of saliva before he runs his tongue around his teeth and swallows.

He yanks back his own chair and sits on the edge of it. The fast then slow movements are in part deliberate – he can see their fear intensifying with every gasp and widening of eyes – and part instinct. He enjoys the thrill and speed of the chase yet likes to study and savour his victims in their final moments.

Edward Bishop reaches across the desk, his elbows clicking as he clasps his hands together. ‘I’m only going to ask you this once and I expect the truth,’ he says to them in a somewhat monotone voice. He hopes to suggest that he does not doubt they will be instantly honest. He hopes to make it easy for them to crumble.

Their three faces stare back expectantly. Jaime, the new girl, looks suitably terrified. She’s only been here a week but seems to have landed herself right in the thick of things. Her mother and step-father are concerned about her choice of friends so far and Edward thinks they are right to be. Ralph Maxwell has never been on his radar before now but he has always disliked the haughty Harrison girl, probably for the same reasons he disliked Paddy Finnis. Something arrogant about the pair of them, he’s always thought, something restless and unsatisfied, something in their eyes that suggests they think they are better than all this. And of course, he remembers their parents at their age…

The Harrison girl is intelligent but uses it for sarcasm. She’s never shown a desire to fit in or follow the rules and she’s never seemed to fully appreciate their unique little town. Out of the three of them, she is the one he senses anger from. Resentment even, frustration, certainly. She is afraid, but less so.

Edward knows that Catherine and Mark are worried that Jaime has become secretive too. Locking her door and acting differently. She’s up to something. He can feel it. The guilt is written all over her face.

And the Maxwell boy looks like he is close to pissing himself and he should be. This town has always been good to him and his young mother. A teen mum, widowed young, too pretty for her own good. But the town has looked after her well, picked her up, pushed her on to better things.

Ralph Maxwell is therefore an ungrateful little swine.

And that brings Edward Bishop to the missing piece. The errant shit, Jesse Archer. The one they all seem so fascinated by. One minute, these kids suspect him of no-good, just like the rest of the town, and the next they’re sheltering him. Why? What changed?

‘You’ve been told by Sergeant Mayfield and your own parents that Jesse Archer is wanted for resisting arrest and breaking and entering.’ Edward stares at them in pure disdain. He wants them to think he is onto them. He wants them to think the game is up. ‘Do any of you know where he is right now?’

Ralph and Jaime shake their heads instantly but he can see the flicker of uncertainty in Willow’s eyes. She wants to fire a question back at him but she remains silent then finally shakes her head too.

He sighs. ‘Aiding and abetting a criminal is also a criminal offence. If it is found that you are lying, you may also be arrested and charged. Now, we know that for some reason the three of you have been hanging around with Archer as well. That seems odd to me.’ He leans forward. ‘Jesse Archer is a renowned bully, thief, vandal and thug. You were not friends with him before. What changed?’

He scrutinises their faces one by one. Again, Ralph and Jaime look wild with fright and uncertainty, like they could crack at any moment, but Willow is struggling with something else. Every now and then her top lip almost lifts in a snarl of disgust. She is straight-backed and stiff, her knees locked together, and her arms still folded. She is angry. Edward tilts his head. He wonders how far he can go with her.

‘Willow?’ Neville speaks for the first time. ‘You and Paddy were close friends. This must be a very hard time for you.’

‘Yes,’ agrees Edward. ‘And that makes it even harder for me to understand why you’d befriend a miscreant like Archer.’

She swallows. ‘Paddy liked him,’ Her voice is small but firm. ‘I didn’t, but Paddy has always been a good judge of character and now he’s missing, I thought, I felt, like I should give Jesse a chance.’

‘Oh?’ Edward raises his eyebrows at her. ‘Is that so?’

‘Yes,’ she nods. ‘And you know what, Mr Bishop? Paddy was right.’

Edward cannot quite comprehend the audacity of her. He gives her a cold look while Neville looks on anxiously.

‘Well, Miss Harrison, that’s really very interesting. And leads me to question if you’re such a fan of Jesse Archer, maybe there’s a chance you know something about him breaking into Sergeant Mayfield’s house? Or maybe you were even part of it?’

‘I don’t know anything about that,’ she says, staring right back at him.

‘And I suppose you don’t know where he is either?’ He smiles.

She smiles back. ‘It’s a very small town. There can’t be that many places for him to hide.’

‘No. Quite right. And when he is found, he’ll be made a ward of court and taken into foster care. He’s really only delaying the inevitable by hiding away.’ Edward releases a dramatic sigh and bows his head for a moment, hoping to convey his utmost disappointment in them all. When he glances back up, he catches Neville’s eyes. He has moved forward a bit and is twisting his chubby hands together in front of him.

‘Mr Bishop, I understand this has been a difficult week for everyone,’ Hewlett says, his tone sickly sweet. ‘In particular you, Willow, being such close friends with Paddy.’

‘Yeah, and it’s like everyone has just forgotten him already,’ she blurts out then, arms still crossed as she side-eyes Neville.

‘Sorry?’ he replies.

‘I beg your pardon?’ asks Edward.

She clears her throat. ‘Paddy. It’s only been a week but already no one talks about him. They’re not even searching for him anymore. Everyone has just given up.’

Edward shakes his head. ‘That’s not true.’

‘It is,’ Willow insists. ‘There are no searches. Nothing. When the posters get ragged and fall down, no one replaces them.’

Edward does not know what to say – because of course, she is right – and suddenly more than anything he wants to get all three of them out of his office. He looks at Neville for help. Neville places a hand on the back of Willow’s chair and she automatically flinches away from it. Edward feels tired. He wants them gone. He wants time to move on from all this. Because he knows that given enough time, everyone will indeed move on and the town will indeed forget. The town is covered in a sweet haze and only rough spikes like Willow Harrison and Jesse Archer are a risk to that.

Edward misses the sweet haze and hopes they return to it soon. He rubs one eye and gestures to the door.

‘Mr Hewlett, I think we’re going around in circles here.’

‘Yes,’ Neville agrees. ‘What we also wanted to talk about was extra support and guidance for you. Starting right now, in fact. Willow?’

She frowns at him, lips pressed together.

He reaches out and opens the door. ‘We can start with you. Do you want to come to my office? Jaime and Ralph I’ll send for you after.’

‘What about my next class?’ Willow gets up from the chair.

He smiles a charming smile. ‘It’s all arranged. Come along.’

She looks helplessly at her friends before following Mr Hewlett out of the office.

‘Go on,’ Edward says to the other two. ‘Off you go to class and remember, aiding and abetting is a crime too. I want you to think about that very seriously indeed.’

When they are all gone, Edward Bishop flexes his arms and legs and arches his back. He smiles slowly as the stresses of teaching seep away and the potential adventure and freedom his new position offers stretch out enticingly.

Neville Hewlett ushers Willow Harrison into his hot, stuffy office and closes the door. She sits down stiffly, animosity leeching into the atmosphere and he wipes his sweaty hands down his trousers and sighs to himself. This won’t be easy because it never is.

He slides behind his desk and finds it hard to look at her because when he does he feels the heavy knowledge settle on him; they don’t take him seriously and they never will.

‘So, Willow,’ he says with a gushing smile meant to relax her. ‘Please be assured that nobody has forgotten Paddy and no one has given up searching for him. He is still a member of our community and this school and a valued member. An important one.’

She eyes him coldly and does not respond. He shifts in his chair and longs for this to be over. Eventually it will be. Time moves on. People forget. It all comes full circle again. It will be all right again, soon. He closes his eyes briefly and pictures the face of his secret date. They will meet in the shadows tonight when his girlfriend Tahlia is working her shift at The Hare and Hound.

‘Whatever.’ Willow says and when his eyes snap open she shrugs at him and flicks back her hair. ‘Can I go now please?’

‘Willow, I’m trying to help you. We’re all trying to help.’ He sits back in his chair, palms upturned in frustration.

‘All right then,’ she says. ‘Can you be honest with me, Mr Hewlett?’

‘Of course, Willow, you can ask me anything.’

She stares at him for a long moment. He wants to look away. Her eyes are large and dark and angry and he fears what is going to come out of her mouth. He suddenly hates his job and feels a sick envy for Mayor Sumner up on her high Hill Fort Farm.

‘What happened to Jesse’s head when Sergeant Mayfield tried to arrest him?’

It’s the very last thing Neville expected her to say. His eyes widen as his mind panics and scrambles for an answer or a way out. He wishes he was back in Bishop’s office. He’s like Mayfield, he thinks, ruthless and confident. But Neville isn’t.

He blinks rapidly and feels hot itchy sweat oozing between his buttocks and the plastic chair under them.

‘What? I don’t- ’ He stumbles over his words as Willow looks on in triumph. He hates her then. Hates her for being so angry and sullen and quick; hates her for still harping on about Paddy bloody Finnis. Mayfield is right about one thing: it should have been Jesse Archer. Then none of this would be happening…

‘You were there, right?’ Her sharp tone cuts right through him. She sounds like an adult. Angry, stern, unimpressed.

‘No, I certainly was not there,’ he laughs. ‘What an absurd suggestion, Willow! Whatever gave you that idea?’

‘Jesse said you were there. He’s got a big head injury from Mayfield’s baton so it’s no wonder he legged it. That’s why he’s hiding, Mr Hewlett, because Sergeant Mayfield is a corrupt bully.’

She stops suddenly, though he is sure she wants to go on. But she shuts her mouth and looks around the room anxiously as if a chill has crawled over her.

‘Willow, you really can’t go around making accusations like that. I was not there at all and Jesse Archer is a renowned liar. He’s obviously had quite an effect on you, young lady, which really is a shame! And now you better tell me when and where you saw him! You have just sat there and lied to our faces!’

A siren suddenly blares – making them both jump. Neville glances at the window, then back at her.

‘Sounds like a fire engine.’

She frowns and looks anxiously at the door while the siren moves off into town. Neville nods at her.

‘Go on, I think we’ll leave it there. I’m going to do you one favour and one favour only, Miss Harrison. I’m going to forget what you just said about seeing Jesse Archer and in return, you’re going to stay away from him! Do you understand?’

He waits until she has given him an angry nod, then gets up opens the door for her. Outside in the corridor a crowd of children have gathered at the main doors and a loud cacophony of excited chatter can be heard going back and forth between them.

‘It’s a fire, Mr Hewlett!’ a girl yells out.

‘Well, it’s not here is it, so get back to class,’ he replies, glancing at Willow.

‘It’s in town! Something’s on fire! I can see smoke!’

Several children have pasted themselves dramatically to the glass windows.

‘Come on, back to class all of you! It’s nothing for us to worry about.’

But they don’t listen. A boy suddenly pushes through from outside, wide-eyed and breathless.

‘It’s Black Hare Cottage!’ he yells at them all. ‘It’s on fire!’

Willow gapes in horror and shoots a dark and unforgiving look at Neville Hewlett. He rolls his eyes in despair, turns and goes back into the office.

Vicar Greg Roberts is clipping the neat box hedge that surrounds the front garden of Ivy Cottage, when the fire engines roar by. He has, of course, been clipping with the scent of smoke on the air for some time. He makes his way to the gate and leans on the wooden post, shears held against his leg while he witnesses the commotion unfold.

The smoke is now wafting up the High Street from Hare Lane. His wife, Meridith, calls from the front door. ‘Darling, what is it?’

Greg looks over his shoulder at his thin, pale wife. Meredith has shoulder length brown hair and a plain, forgettable face. Despite their undeniable oddness, Greg has always been grateful that his twin daughters, Lillith and Abigail, inherited his vivid red hair. It sets them apart, he thinks, makes them memorable.

Meredith, a mousy woman in cream trousers and a brown blouse, is holding out a bag of rubbish. He places the clippers on the grass then strides up the path to take it from her.

‘Something’s on fire,’ he tells her. ‘Further down.’

‘Oh my goodness,’ she says in a flat voice before retreating back inside.

Greg strolls back to the gate and slips outside to lower the rubbish into the bin. He can’t quite see the curve of the high street, so he calls out to the house, ‘I think I’ll just take a quick look!’

Greg walks away and out of sight. He walks around the copse and once Hare Lane comes into view, he can see what is on fire. It is Black Hare Cottage. He stands, hands on hips, and watches. The fire crew are in attendance and he can see Aaron Mayfield and a few PC’s stringing up tape to keep the public back, but Greg can see it is all in vain.

The thatch is ablaze. The house is made of rotten, crumbling wood. One of the town’s most ancient buildings does not stand a chance.

A crowd has gathered and through the bobbing heads and shrugging shoulders, Greg thinks he catches a glimpse of Bob Rowan. It’s a brief, but fascinating sighting. Bob Rowan is even more of a recluse than Iris Cotton. Greg can’t help wondering if it was the flames that drew him down from his farm, or something else.

It was definitely him though, thinks Greg, a little excitedly. He would recognise that sleek black hair and thin moustache anywhere. He scans the crowd shrewdly but if it was Bob Rowan, he is gone now.

‘Look! Look at that!’ someone in the crowd yells out.

Greg looks where they are pointing and sees a swift white creature darting away from the burning house. It seems to be leaping right out of the flames and appears remarkably unscathed as it zig-zags at speed through the crowd of people before vanishing into the dark depths of the copse beside Saint Marks.

‘Did you see that?’ an old-timer looks up at Greg with a gaping mouth and yellowed teeth. She is leaning over her walking stick and shaking her head.

‘I did indeed!’ he replies warmly. ‘A white hare! What a sight!’

‘They used to say they were witches really,’ the old woman goes on and Greg responds with an appropriately amused chuckle. ‘They’d turn into hares to escape being burned at the stake!’

‘Oh yes, I’ve heard that one,’ smiles Greg. ‘But there is actually a good explanation for it. They used to burn the corn and wheat fields after the harvest and the hares would wait until the last moment to spring out and run past the people to safety – so to them it looked like the hares were running through the fire.’

He gives the old woman a crinkle-eyed smile and she waves her hand at him in a rather disgruntled manner before wandering off. Greg feels someone arrive at his shoulder and glances down to see Sylvia Gordon.

She is small and neat – pocket-sized, he jokes when they are alone – with blonde curls she keeps above neck level. She wears glasses – in a sexy librarian style, he thinks – and orderly, old-fashioned clothes.

‘Well, well,’ she remarks, her eyes fixed on the flaming cottage. ‘Has anyone seen Iris, do you know? Is she safe?’

Greg shrugs as he eyes her curiously. He has lost interest in the cottage. ‘Shouldn’t you be at school?’

She checks her watch and taps the clock face with a neat polished nail. ‘No, I’ve not got another class until after lunch today. I was running a few errands when I heard all the fuss.’ She sidles a little closer and tugs his sleeve. ‘There is a meeting tonight, Greg. I was asked to pass that on.’

‘Oh? At the pub?’

‘No, no.’ She shakes her baby blonde curls at him and he feels a little dizzy. ‘At Margaret’s.’

‘Everyone?’

She makes a face. ‘I’m not sure. Eugenie told me and I was to tell you.’ She looks back at the flames and nods. ‘Guess we’ll find out later. I’m quite looking forward to it. There’s been a lot going on lately.’ Sylvia’s arms reach out in front of her. She clasps her hands together and stretches like a runner. ‘I need a debrief.’

‘Hmm. What time are we required?’

‘Eight.’

‘All right then. I’ll meet you there.’

She looks up, winks then turns and strides away. Greg watches her go then turns back to the warmth of the blaze. The thatch is gone – a black smouldering mess is all that remains. The fire is mostly out but the burnt smell is heavy in the air around them. The crowd start to drift away, muttering. The air is filled with softly floating debris – little remnants of grey or black drifting in the breeze. Iris Cotton’s life, he thinks.

The High Street is busier than normal and Eugenie Spires is stood in front of the double doors with her hands planted on her hips to observe. Eugenie is one of life’s great observers. There is not much that gets past her.

She doesn’t consider herself nosy – just watchful. She doesn’t do it on purpose after all; it’s just her nature, the way some people are shy, or nervous, or arrogant. Eugenie is observant. It’s who she is. She can’t help it and she doesn’t consider herself a gossip either. Much of what she picks up she keeps to herself. Gossips pass information on for the sake of it, for attention, whereas Eugenie does not need or desire attention from anyone.

Today she watches smoke drifting up the street with the dispersing crowd and even with the doors shut, the smell of burning straw seeps in. Her nose twitches and she backs off with a haughty sigh. The smell of anything burning is unpleasant: thatch, fields, toast, flesh. She shudders and scurries back into her library.

The children’s area is busy. It’s Rhyme Time for the local toddlers and a group of mothers are sat on the colourful beanbags while Nathan Cotton reads a series of nursery rhymes and the tots respond by clapping hands and smashing plastic instruments together. The noise goes straight through her but Eugenie tolerates it because she’s always had a firm understanding of what this town needs.

She is a great believer in sacrifice and Rhyme Time is a good example. She’s not especially fond of small children but she can tolerate fifty minutes of noise and sticky fingers for the good of the town. Mums and tots need things to do, places to go where they can make friends and Eugenie believes that a love of libraries instilled in young babies can produce life-long readers. What a library needs most is readers and what a town needs most is longevity.

She pauses to watch the young Cotton boy, wondering if she ought to tell him his grandmother’s house is on fire. Or is she his great-grandmother? Eugenie is not sure. Years blend together here. Generations merge and get confused.

She decides not to tell him. She will play dumb. Soon enough, someone will come bundling in excitedly to spill the news and he will find out then. She goes behind the desk and wonders what he will do. Run out probably – try to find his mother and Iris. Will Iris stay at theirs? Of course, the town will come together for Iris. No doubt, they will discuss it at the meeting tonight. What they can do, what support they can offer. Everything will be gone, Eugenie muses. Nothing will survive the flames.

And after the flames comes rebirth; growth, which is why they used to torch the fields after harvest.

‘Hickory dickory dock!’ Nathan sings with his usual red-faced nervousness. He is kneeling in tight blue jeans in front of the mums and tots – the sleeves of his slim fitting red top rolled up to his elbows. ‘Tick tock! Tick, tock!’ he waggles a finger at them. Some of the babies copy, standing up and waving pudgy hands back at him.

Eugenie supposes he does it for fun – can it really be fun? He seems to like the mothers, always making small-talk with them and asking who did their hair or where they got their shoes from. The mums like him too. He’s non-threatening, she supposes. He tells her he enjoys it. That it’s important to give back. That Black Hare Valley has a wonderful community spirit and she agrees. It really does.

Nathan is a good boy. She knows he will be upset about Black Hare Cottage but these things happen. Life will go on. It always does. He will go to work at the chemist tomorrow and he’ll be back for more Rhyme Time next Monday and in between work and home and the library, she supposes he will continue to meet Neville Hewlett in dark, secretive places until one day, inevitably, they get caught.

Eugenie sighs to herself, shaking her head. People are their own worst enemies, she thinks. Secrets everywhere. Secret lives. It makes them soft and vulnerable, easy to manipulate into place.

She thinks about her new neighbours on School Lane. Ralph Maxwell and his delightfully fresh-faced mother, Charlotte. He wasn’t a child she paid much attention to before, but now? Things are different since the Finnis boy vanished – things are not quite right. Eugenie is pleased they are neighbours so that she can do what she does best.

Sergeant Mayfield is drawn by the sound of smashing glass and is relieved and smug when he discovers the cause. Dominic Robeson’s large shaved head is the first thing he sees as he approaches the blackened, still smoking husk of Black Hare Cottage just as dusk is falling.

The smell of burnt thatch is thick in the air and he coughs to clear his throat, the sound alerting Dominic to his presence. The big dumb kid stops stomping on window panes and faces him, frozen like a hare caught in the glare of a lamp. For a moment, Aaron considers himself the hound, released and already racing towards its prey. He feels his feet leaving the burnt ground and leaping, flying, ears pressed flat against his long skull, his lean athletic body smashing into the prey and knocking him flat.

‘Don’t stop on my accord!’ Aaron calls out, swinging his baton as he strides towards Dominic. ‘That looks like a lot of fun!’

Dominic lowers the hammer he is holding then opens his fingers, letting it hit the earth with a soft thump. Just then, Aarron hears a crunching from within the remains of the house and a voice calls out, ‘I’ve found a shit load of money!’ They both look on as Steven emerges brashly from the sooty brickwork, clutching handfuls of old jewellery.

He stops when he sees Aaron and his mouth falls open. Steven’s stringy and lean, his eyes smarter and colder than Dominic’s who is a mercifully obedient pet to this thug.

Aaron sniffs the air and wrinkles his nose as if the air offends him. ‘Got you,’ he says cheerily, winking at Steven.

Aaron can see the boy is considering running. He’ll leave his friend behind in a heartbeat because he can run faster. He won’t look back. Aaron swings the baton and steps towards him, holding up a warning finger.

‘Don’t you even think about it. I’ll set you on fire and say you burned when the house did. No one will know any different.’ He glances coldly at Dominic. ‘You too. Don’t move a muscle. Keep your dumb mouths shut and listen. Then I’ll let you go.’

He waits, looking between them, giving them a second to consider their options. The Robeson boy’s shoulders slump miserably and his head lowers. Steven runs a tongue around the inside of his mouth and then stuffs the jewellery into the pockets of his jeans. He glares at Aaron, waiting.

‘I was looking for someone to do me a favour,’ says Aaron. He nods. ‘And you two idiots helped me before, so you can help me again. I won’t have to arrest you for criminal damage and theft if you listen carefully and then do exactly what I tell you, all right?’

The boys edge closer together, both nodding. Aaron continues. ‘Jesse Archer is hiding in the Finnis treehouse, the one you fetched the book from.’ He pauses, registering the interest on Steven’s face. ‘I want you to go there now and lure him out. I want him in the alley between the bookshop and the hardware, you understand?’

‘How do we lure him out?’ Dominic asks dubiously.

‘That’s for you to figure out,’ snaps Aaron. ‘Just get him to that alley any way you can then turn around and leave. We’ll be square then. Agreed?’

The boys look at each other again, Dominic shrugs helplessly while Steven makes the decision for both of them. He nods.

‘Sure, Sergeant Mayfield. Not a problem.’

Thanks for reading!

Please feel free to leave a comment letting me know what you thought of this latest chapter.

COMING NEXT THURSDAY: Chapter Nineteen “The Meeting”

The Glorious Outsiders

Chantelle Atkins, Author

British Folklore

Black Hare Valley: The Final Chapter! “The Fight”

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Black Hare Valley: Chapter Twenty-Nine “The Hunt”

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Black Hare Valley: Chapter Nineteen “The Meeting”

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Black Hare Valley: Chapter Eighteen “The Committee”

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