Loder's Hill:
There's Romany in my paternal bloodline, a fact which I am immensely proud of. This story is a little dedication to that — with the usual twist of course. Enjoy.

Loder's Hill

by Stacey Dighton

​

    My dad was good with a blade. Knife, bandsaw, scythe - it didn’t matter. He and my granddad sharpened them for a living. They were thorough, meticulous. People would travel from all over: the wealthy, the successful, even those who were barely getting by. Many would pay a good price, others not so much. My mum married in, but she knew what she was getting herself into — a life of wandering, of making ends meet. Three sons and two daughters. I’m the youngest. Mealtime was always a battle. They raised us right, though. We would fight like dogs, but only if absolutely necessary. Our decades long war with the Lovells went on far too long, but we won. We live off the land, believing that if you treat it right, it looks after you. I may have been the only one to have gone to college, but Romany’s always right there in my blood. More than that. It’s in my skin, in the muscle that shapes me, the taste that’s forever on my tongue.

 

#

 

    When my dad dies, it affects me badly. I feel diluted. Something like that, so sudden, it changes you. We’re gathered with him. My family and our closest kin, my dad in the open coffin. He’s no longer the strong, powerful, oak of a man I once worshipped. He’s just a waxy carcass now, cold and hard like plastic.

    “They’ve said no. Again!”

    “What?” I don’t really hear what my sister, Doris, says.

    “The council. They’ve said no. We can’t bury him at Loder’s Hill.”

    “But they’re all buried there. The family. Granddad, Nan Eve, Uncle Tommy,” I protest. “It’s what he wanted. It’s what mum wants.”

    “Well,” Doris blows smoke, stubs out her fag. “They’re not having it. They’re a bunch of racist bastards, and they’re not gonna let us do it.”

    “Mum? Do you know about this?”

    My mother raises her head and nods. Her eyes are damp, and there’s thin streaks of mascara on her cheeks.

    “Pat? Ted?”

    My eldest brother slams his hand onto the kitchen worktop. “We know, Billy! And we don’t like it any more than you do.”

    I look down at my dad’s corpse. His eyes are closed, but I can tell he’s listening to every word. The dead don’t just vanish, no matter what people might think. They hang around for a bit, make sure they’re being treated properly, being given the right send off. This isn’t it.

    “I’ll go down there. Talk to them,” I say.

    Lizbeth grips my hand. “It’s too late, Bill. Having him here like this, it’s killing Ma.”

    “But—”

    “I’ll phone the crematorium at Stocker’s,” Pat growls. “They’ll take him.”

    “Take him? Take him?” I don’t get on with Pat, never have. “He’s not something you need to get shot of. He’s our dad!”

    “And what do you suggest, Bill?”

    “I don’t know,” I say, but I have an idea.

 

#

 

    There’s a lot of stories about Loder’s Hill. Old wives’ tales maybe, but we believed. At least we did when we were kids. I’m thirty now, and I like to think most of that’s behind me. I’m just focused on the fact that my dad wanted to be buried alongside his blood, his ma and da.

    “We go tonight.”

    “What about the others?” Petey asks. He’s a year older than me and built like a tank - a fat one at that. His fiancée, Tara, is in the passenger seat of the van. We’re outside on the tarmac.

    “We can’t worry about that now.”

    “Bill, if we put Dad in the ground without Ma and the rest of our kin right there alongside us, we’re as good as saying he deserves to be buried alone.”

    “And what would you have us do, mush?” I ask. “Burn him over at Stockers, like every other gorja?”

    “I don’t know. Maybe.”

    “And you think he’d like that, do you? His ashes all mixed up with the Bakers and the Hopewells?”

    “No, of course not. I’m not saying that. But—”

    “Well, it sounds like y’are.”

    “No! It’s just—"

    “Look, if yer not gonna help, then leave me be. I’ll do it meself.”

    That does the trick. We heave Dad’s box into the back of the van without saying another word.

 

#

 

    The pot-holed track leading up to Loder’s is narrow and difficult to navigate. The trail was once an old Roman mining road from when the Weald was crisscrossed with the scars of iron smelting yards. That industry is long gone, of course, but the stench remains. The death, it lingers. They say it’s haunted by the Britons, the Celts, and the Saxons. Hundreds, maybe thousands, died up there; men, women and children, lying starving and suffocating in the toxic fumes of smoldering ore.

    “I hate it here.”

    “Shut up, Tara,” Petey says.

    “You shut up, you big fat lump.”

    “Listen, the two of yers,” I say. “We’ll leave Dad in back. Tara, you can stay in here if you want. Me and Petey have a hole to dig.”

    “Bollocks I will,” she says. “It’s bloody dark out there, and this place is haunted.” She shoves Petey out the door and swings her legs after him. “I’m staying with the two of yers, even if y’are both idiots. At least I’ll have his fat ass to hide behind when the zombies come.”

    “With a mouth like yours, the zombies will most likely be more afraid of you,” Petey says.

    She whacks him in the ribs, and he doubles over. I laugh so hard I nearly wet meself.

    I chuck two spades into a barrow, and push our cargo along the narrow track that snakes through the forest. The cemetery is situated at the top of a shallow slope.     The thin mist hangs in the air like cobwebs, and the day’s remaining sunshine fades to nothing. The trees bend and stretch across the path. From behind me, Petey yelps. I whirl round.

    “What’s up with you?”

    “Something hit me.”

    “Oh, for God’s sake, Tara? Will you just give it a rest, love?” I snap.

    “Who you calling love?” she says. “I’m no love of yours, Billy Holland.”

    “And thank our lord Jesus Christ for that.”

    “Oh, leave off arguing!” Petey says. “And anyway, it wasn’t her.” He chances a look over his shoulder. “It was something else.”

    “You got the heebie-jeebies, lad?” I ask, grinning.

    “Get on with you, Billy. Let’s just get this over with.”

    We make it to the top of the mound. The cemetery opens up before us, and I wonder how many thousands of bodies lie silent and still within the soil beneath our feet. Up ahead, headstones protrude from the earth like giant teeth. Our grandparents are towards the western slope. It’s the bare patch next to them that beckons my dad.

    “Over there,” I say. “That’s where we’re going.”

    The sky is clear and black. Shimmering stars look down on us from a billion miles away. A blood moon hangs within them, a sharp circle of dimpled scarlet. It casts crimson shadows among the headstones. I picture a deep gouge in the earth where our nan and granddad are buried, and for a minute I wonder whether they’ve managed to claw their way out, digging fleshless fingers through soil and hard flint. I realize that’s impossible. They’re long dead. We’re surrounded by silhouettes of gnarly hands with crooked fingers. Thick branches like muscular arms flex and shift, sap pours like viscous, clotted blood across mottled skin. Roots protrude from jagged splits in the soil. They snake towards us with twisted, arching limbs that devour the earth and then rise up again to caress the ground around our boots. There’s doubt in me.

    “I don’t know about this,” I say.

    “What are you fretting about?” Petey asks. “We’re here now. Let’s just dig.”

    Tara’s spotted something. She points. “There’s someone over there.”

    There’s the flash of a flame, and the orange tip of a cigarette.

    “Ere, look Alfie. It’s a bunch of dirty pikeys!” a voice cries.

    The scent of weed wafts over us, and then a torch beam splits us in two. Now all I can see is a ball of brilliant white light and the curl of Tara’s lip.

    “Oi! Pikeys! You got any lucky heather for us?” someone shouts.

    Two others laugh.

    “Who you calling a pikey? Eh? You wanna say that to my face, chav?” Petey yells. He’s never been coy with his mouth. “Come on, sweetie! Don’t be shy!”

    A fast-moving silhouette rushes Petey from his right. My brother, who’s sprightly for his size, swings the spade from his waist, and it connects with a spotty, white face. There’s a crunch and a splatter of blood. Some of it lands in Tara’s hair.

    “Bloody hell, Petey!” she yells.

    Petey’s victim is now holding his nose in his hands, blood spurting between wiry fingers. The boy can’t be older than eighteen. “You broke it!” the kid says.

    Something hits me hard in the back of my head. I see stars for a second and then I swing an elbow. It connects with jawbone and there’s a thud and a squeak. I turn to face my attacker, this one a little younger. He’s wearing a bright yellow beanie and lying flat on his back. He glares up at me, his eyes moist with tears. Something about him is familiar.

    “Just get yerself up mate, and piss off,” I say.

    Someone grabs Tara’s hair and her head jerks backwards. She shrieks.

    “You want me to mess her up? Do you?” It’s an older boy in a snapback. He looks a little crazy.

    “Just let her go,” I say. “And calm yerself down, lad.”

    “You hurt her, mush, and I’ll pummel you,” Petey says. “I’ll hit you so hard you’ll be picking teeth out of yer arsehole for weeks.”

    The crazy kid pulls a knife. “You want me to cut her, pikey? You want me to give your slag of a girlfriend a pretty little scar? Right here on her cheek?” He places the flat of the blade against her face. Tara grits her teeth. “Or on her pert little titties?” He runs it across her chest.

    Tara has a brown-belt in jiu-jitsu. She drops down, surprising her captor with her speed, and spins on her toes, bringing the heel of her palm up hard into the boy’s testicles. I hear the crushing of soft, tender flesh.

    “Ugh!” He falls to his knees and topples forwards.

    “Take yer hands off me, you skanky crackhead!”  

    I bend down and pick up the knife. “Get on with you now, lads,” I say to them.

    The kid with the snapback looks up at me. “Me and my brothers will come for you. You know that, right?”

    I take the cap from his head and put it on my own. “What’s yer name son?”

    “Docherty. George Docherty.” He spits his words.

    “I see.” I look up at Petey. “Hey Petey, this here is Laz’s kid.”

    “Gobby little shite,” Petey says, smiling. “Just like his da.” We both laugh.

    George doesn’t find it funny though. He starts to pull himself up on his elbows, his eyes ablaze, but something races across the damp grass, snares his ankles and yanks him rearward. He lets out a high-pitched yelp as he’s dragged across the hard earth and pulled feet first into the undergrowth. He manages a thin “help me”, as he disappears into the darkness.

    “What the hell?” yellow beanie squawks.

    I jump up and shoot my brother a nervous glance. “Petey, did you see that?”

    Tara’s heading towards the bushes. Her mouth is moving silently, like she’s mumbling to herself.

    “I saw something,” Petey says. “Just don’t ask me what it was, because I have no idea.”

    “Don’t go over there, Tara!” I yell. “Not until we figure out what the hell just happened.”

    “I’m getting outta here,” spotty white face says.

    “But what about George?” yellow beanie asks. He’s shaking. “We can’t just leave him.”

    “No? Just watch me.” The spotty kid turns and heads towards the slope. He doesn’t get far. Something grey and wiry reaches out from the shadows and wraps itself around his neck. There’s a grunt and a snap, and he goes limp. He drops to the floor like a sack of potatoes. Something emerges from the soil and lifts him in the air, tossing his lifeless, ragdoll of a body into the oily black.

    We glance anxiously at each other in turn. There’s fear now. Real stomach-churning terror.

    “You, with the hat,” Petey says. “What’s yer name?”

    “Tommy.”

    “Get over here, Tommy, will you? Yer gonna get yerself killed, standing over there in the dark all on yer own.”

    Tommy removes his beanie and shuffles towards us. I still can’t work out why his face is so familiar. “I…don’t know…what to…” he stammers.

    “No. None of us do,” I say. “So, I suggest we get the hell out of here, and fast.”

    “Not likely,” Petey says, and makes off towards the perimeter.

    “Don’t be stupid,” I say. “You can’t see a bloody thing, and whoever’s out there has the jump on us.” I grab my own spade. “Let’s just get to the van and come back when it’s light. Dad will have to wait.” The words stick in my throat. “We can’t do anything if we’re dead.”

    Petey comes reluctantly, swearing and tossing the spade from one hand to the other. We arrive at the spot where the track’s supposed to begin, but trees, bracken and dense ivy block our way. The darkness that binds the forest together suddenly seems thick, solidified somehow. There’s something within it too. I catch a glimpse of a face, the outline of a chin, the slant of a jaw, and grey slits for eyes. Then it moves and fades out of sight.

    “What the hell was that?” Tommy cries.

    “I have no idea,” I say.

    Tara turns to Petey. “Do you have yer lighter?”

    “Of course. But if yer thinking what I think yer thinking, it won’t work. We don’t have any fuel.”

    “Don’t need any,” she says, cracking a fallen twig. “This wood’s dry enough for kindling.”

    “Wait,” I say. “What about us? What about the graves?”

    “It’s a distraction, Billy,” Tara says, collecting dead wood from the ground.

    “And our family? They’re buried here.”

    She pats me on the cheek. “What do the dead care about a few flames?”

    “I don’t like it either, bruv,” Petey says. “But what option do we have?” I know he’s right.

    Pretty soon we’ve assembled a long mound at the edge of the clearing. It’s about thirty feet in length.

    “You want to do the honors, lover boy?” Tara asks Petey.

    “Sure, why not,” he says as he stoops, steel lighter in hand.

    “Wait!” Tommy yells. He looks terrified.

    “Just stay over there, lad. Let the adults deal with this,” Petey says. He touches the lighter to the kindling, and before too long the whole lot is crackling and smoldering. We stand back as the flames start to grow and spread. Smoke fills the air. Scarlet tendrils stain our faces, our hair. I feel the fire’s acrid kiss in my throat and lungs.

    “Let’s move away before—”

    Petey turns to me. There’s something on his shoulders; blackened hands, cracked skin like split leather. A shadow of a man stands among the flames. He flickers and grins. His teeth are smeared black, eyes grey and yellow with the glare of a life once lived. He lets out an almighty howl as something jagged and sharp bursts through Petey’s stomach. He cries out, “Billy!”, but blood is in his mouth and on his lips.

    “No!” My brother! my mind screams.

    “Billy, stay back,” Tara urges, but I’m in the shadows now, thrashing around in the dark, looking for something to grab, to shake, to punch and butt, to split and tear.

    After a few frantic seconds, I stop, breathless. I’m all alone and blind. The flames have disappeared. Even the stench of fire has dissipated. I turn, but the clearing is no longer there. There’s just a nothingness. I call out.

    “Tara? Petey?”

    There’s no answer. I hadn’t expected one.

    The eyes return. Six, seven, eight pairs. The shadows caress me, kiss at my neck and shoulders. I feel the ghost of a finger on my skin, the smell of burning coal and smelting iron in my nose. I’m slapped hard on the face and my legs buckle. Something cracks in the darkness, and a hot, searing pain erupts on my spine. I collapse in a heap.

    “Get to work, gypsy!” a voice calls. “Those coals won’t light themselves.”

    Suddenly my body’s on fire. “But it’s too hot,” I say. “I…I can’t stand it.”

    “Work or die, son!”

    I pull myself up to my knees. I sense a shadow kneeling before me. She is holding a baby and crying. “They’ll kill us all if you don’t get to work,” she says. “Please, my love, just do as they ask.”

    “But I’m…” My words falter. I’ve forgotten who I am. I’m just an empty soul now, drifting in the darkness like a dry husk.

    “Please,” she pleads once more. “She needs food.” I reach a hand to the baby, but it evaporates beneath my touch. I turn to the mother, but her shadow shifts and moves in the black.

    “You’re failing us boy! The masters will not accept failure!” There’s another loud retort, another searing hot pain, this time across my chest and ribs. I scream.

    “I can’t!” I reply.

    “You will!” the shadow answers.

    “I won’t!” I feel hopeless, lifeless.

    Something grabs at my shoulders, pulls at my hair. I try to fight it, but I feel limp, weak. My lungs are filled with something bitter and suffocating, the skin on my face and neck is hot and sore. My eyes are streaming.

    “Billy! Get out of there!” It’s Tara. She’s stepped into the flames and is dragging me away. “The whole forest is ablaze.”

    “The shadows?” I ask. I slump onto the grass, my shirt smoldering, my lungs burning. I turn and spit out black soot and phlegm.

    “Billy,” she says. She’s crying. “Petey’s gone!”

    “But…” suddenly I remember. The blackened, twisted stake that ripped through my brother’s body. He’s gone? I look past Tara and see him lying there. My heart is torn in two. I look up at Tommy. Everything comes back to me.

    “I do know you,” I say.

    “Do you?” He smiles, but his lips have no warmth.

    “Thomas Stanley.”

    “I prefer Tommy.”

    “You planned this, didn’t you?”

    He doesn’t speak, but his eyes give me all the truth I need.

    “But why?”

    “Your da killed my ma.”

    I stand on unsteady legs. “That’s not true. Yer mum died of a heart attack.”

    “That’s what finished her, but her health faded fast once all the unrest started. The Hollands’ took our land, destroyed our businesses!”

    “You were muscling in on our territory, and you know it.”

    “Your brother, Ted, burned our farmland!”

    “Yer cousin, Arthur, attacked my sister!”

    Tommy pulls out a handgun.

    “Whoa there, Tommy!” I cry out. “What yer doing?”

    “I’m doing what I came here to do.”

    “Don’t we have bigger issues to worry about, lad?”

    “I’m done worrying about bigger issues. I’ve spent a whole lifetime doing just that, and for what? To wait and watch my ma drop dead in front of me. To stand there as she thrashed around on the kitchen floor, her eyes bulging in her head!” He’s crying now.

    “Why don’t you put the gun down?” Tara pleads.

    “Shut up!” he yells. The gun is shaking in his hand. “This has nothing to do with you, Lovell. You’ve had your quarrel. Now let me deal with mine.”

    I wonder whether I heard him correctly. Did he say Lovell? Tara’s not a Lovell, is she? No, she can’t be. We would have known.

    “Tommy, come on. You don’t need to do this,” I say, but it’s too late. There’s a deafening crack, and the jarring impact shoves me to the ground. I can feel blood on my cheek. There’s a hole in my shoulder the size of a ten pence piece, and my hand comes away covered in slick red. I look up and see shadows gathering in the flames. The yellow and grey eyes have returned, ash-colored lips peel back to bare blackened teeth.

    “Shit, Tommy. You shot me.”

    He’s looming over me now, the gun pointed at my forehead. His expression is resolute. The voices return. Stay with us Billy, join us down here in the earth where the soil is rich, where the coal and the salty taste of iron nourishes us, where the agony of the once-living binds us like moss to the ancient rock of this once sacred place. I shut the voices out and think of my family. At least I’ll get to join Petey. I close my eyes.

    Tommy whispers. “This is for my ma.”

    There’s a muffled grunt and I look up. My heart stops. There, standing behind Tommy, holding an arm across his chest and with my knife at his throat, is my dad. His lips are drawn back in a defiant sneer, but his eyes are barely alive. His body is convulsing and twitching, but I know he’s there just the same. I hear Tara murmuring and muttering behind me, but I pay her no mind.

    “Dad, is that you?”

    He grumbles something incoherent. Tommy looks down at me, silently pleading. I get to my feet, just as my dad draws the blade through skin and tendons. There’s a tearing sound as blood sprays over my face and chest. Tommy’s mouth hangs open in disbelief.

    “Dad? I don’t understand.” As I move towards him, he falls to his knees. He reaches a hand to me, drops the knife.

    “Son,” he says, but whatever life force was within him dissipates like mist. His eyes blink shut, and he collapses.

    “Dad? Dad?” I hold him. I can feel the deathly touch of shadowy fingers on the back of my neck as my skin turns cold. Come join us, Billy boy. Your dad’s here, Petey too. All of us. We’re eternal. We are forever. Hundreds of years, just waiting.

    The heat of the blaze washes over me as the smoke fills my lungs. The pain in my shoulder all but disappears, along with my conscious thought. I feel the shadows descend on me like a pack of dogs. Their teeth gnaw at me, their hands claw and pull at my hair, their lips press down on my flesh. I don’t care. Everything is black.

 

#

 

    Morning comes with a spinning blue and red sunbeam. The gavvers find me slumped on the body of my long dead father. They also find four other corpses, one of which is my brother. Tara is long gone.

    They call it the ‘Romany Midnight Massacre’, the press that is. It’s the easy conclusion, of course. A story that sells — two gypsy clans collide over a midnight burial.     Except it wasn’t two clans, was it? It was three. The secret Lovell. She infiltrated our family like a disease. She had the gift too, the rare ability to cast the summoning charm. She’d intended to use it to kill us all during my dad’s funeral. When the council rejected the application, and Petey and I had ventured to go it alone, she’d decided to take what she could get - namely the lives of my brother and I. She knew the dead lingered on Loder’s, and she’d willingly awakened the spirits of the miners. Except, of course, she hadn’t counted on her spell reaching as far as the van at the foot of the hill where my dad lay still in his coffin. When he rose from the dead with blood on his mind, she abandoned the charm and fled. As I said, my dad was always good with a blade.

    Why Tara never left me to die in the fire I’ll never know. Perhaps I never will. What I do know, with absolute certainty, is that a little of the magic clung to me up there on Loder’s Hill. A tiny slither of that lost spirit, the part that wanted to be saved. She’s sitting here with me now in my prison cell. She’s with her baby. Sometimes I hold the child, sing to it. The prison doctor thinks it’s a sickness. Maybe he’s right. Perhaps I’ll be transferred to the hospital on account of my mental frailties. She’ll come of course. My love. Our spirits are entwined, eternal.