Black Annis's Bower

03 October 2009

My attempt at a children’s horror story. Words: 1323.

Polly was sitting before the crackling fire helping her grandmother to wind wool, when her elder brother Tom came in through the cottage door and threw his coat down upon the bench.

“Where have you been Thomas?” Polly’s grandmother asked disapprovingly, wrinkles sketching her face. “It’s already dark outside.”

Tom rolled his eyes. “Nowhere important. Just up in the Dane Hills with my friends.”

Polly’s grandmother used one foot to rock back her rocking chair. “Don’t go into the Dane Hills, Thomas,” she said.

“Why?” asked Polly.

Polly’s grandmother leaned forward, wagging a knitting needle in Polly’s face. “Don’t go into the Dane Hills or Black Annis will have your skin.”

“Rubbish!” Tom smirked. “Grown ups are always trying to scare children, but it’s all stories. There aren’t any real monsters.”

Polly’s grandmother scrutinised Tom with narrow eyes. “She has a bower in the Dane Hills. A cave she dug out with her fingernails. Her fingernails are long enough to knit with.”

Tom wrinkled his freckled nose and shook his blond head. “Then I will go and chop off her head. If she exists at all.”

Polly’s eyes were wide. “Can she really knit with her fingernails?”

Polly’s grandmother pursed her wizened lips and chuckled. “I don’t know. You’ll have to ask her if you want to find out. But you can’t kill her, Thomas. She’s lived for hundreds of years. She’s out there waiting for little girls and boys to wander into the Hills. Her cave is eight feet across and five feet high. She sits outside it in the branches of an oak tree, and when a child comes creeping along, she drops from her perch and pounces on them!”

Polly squealed in delight.

Tom made a scornful noise and took up his grandmother’s ball of red wool. “I shall go and ask her the next time I am in the Dane Hills, if she will knit me a cloak for the winter.”

Polly giggled.

Polly’s grandmother raised her eyebrows. “Ah, don’t laugh at me. We shall soon see who is right and who is wrong when she sucks out your blood and hangs your skin to dry on the walls of her cave.”

*

There was a fair in the Dane Hills each Easter Monday. The Lord Mayor of Leicester opened it, and the festivities began with a hunt. Sometimes the dogs would catch the scent of a hare, but usually the hunt would follow the trail of a dead cat soaked in aniseed. Polly stared at the sight of the boy dragging the stinking, soot black bundle through the grass. The Lord Mayor and his officials sat upon their horses like fat red cherries, waiting for the signal to ride.

“I thought we weren’t supposed to come up to the Dane Hills in case we were eaten,” Polly whined, tugging at the sleeve of her grandmother’s dress.

Polly’s grandmother cackled hoarsely. “That’s all right my dear. Black Annis won’t come to the fair.”

The hunter’s horn startled Polly and she shrank into her grandmother’s cloak as the horses thundered away through the woods.

Tom bounded up to Polly’s grandmother. “I’m going to follow the hunt. See you,” he declared. Then he was gone with his friends after the horses.

*

Tom was lost. He pushed through the undergrowth after a false trail. The bracken almost reached his waist, and the hoof prints in the mud had tapered away on drier ground. With the help of a birch sapling, he climbed up onto a narrow trail.

An oak tree spread wide and green above him, cutting out the sunlight and throwing it about in dappled patches. A woman was standing by the oak tree.

“Hello,” said Tom.

“Good day, young sir,” said the woman, curtseying.

Tom thought the woman was very beautiful. She had long curling chestnut hair and wore an unusual pale leather corset, and a skirt that showed her legs. As Tom climbed closer, he realised that the woman’s hair was all tangled, and her arms and legs were dirty with earth. She had her hands behind her back. “I wonder, madam, if you could point me back towards the fair.”

“Wouldn’t you like to stay with me?” she asked.

Her skin was strangely livid, and as he came level with her, he noticed the cave at her back, and the brazier that burned within. She offered her hand to him. She had very long fingernails.

*

Since Tom’s disappearance at Easter, Polly had been unusually quiet. Now it was nearly time for Christmas, and she was out alone searching the cold, bare woods for mistletoe and holly sprigs.

Polly could not find any mistletoe, but on the hill above her, she could see an old oak tree swathed about with a growing green shroud. “Don’t go into the Dane Hills, Polly,” she murmured to herself. “Or Black Annis will have your skin.”

The temptation of the mistletoe was greater than the threat of a fairy tale.

Polly picked up a rock and put it into her basket with the holly sprigs, which watched her with glistening red eyes. “Don’t go into the Dane Hills,” she said again, covering the rock over with leaves.

The path up into the hills was winding and overgrown with dead branches and brambles.

Halfway up the path, Polly encountered an old woman draped in a long brown cloak. She was twisted and hunched and leaning on a rosewood stick.

“Good day, my dear. What are you doing out all alone in these woods?” said the old woman. “Don’t you know it’s dangerous out here?”

“I know,” Polly replied cheerfully. “I’m searching for mistletoe to hang above the door.”

“Really?” asked the crone, shuffling along beside Polly as she walked. “I know exactly the place for mistletoe. Let me show you the way.”

Polly followed the old woman up the path through the hills and to a tall oak tree wrapped all around with mistletoe. “Let me help you cut some sprigs,” said the old woman, taking out a knife.

Polly stared at the old woman’s fingernails as the woman cut lengths of mistletoe from the trunk of the tree.

Behind Polly was a cave. Inside the cave was a burning brazier, and hanging on the wall was a skin. The skin was pink. Polly took the rock from her basket.

“Here we are my dear,” said the old woman, holding out the sprigs of mistletoe.

Polly held her basket at arm’s length. The woman put the mistletoe into the basket and caught hold of Polly’s wrist. Polly tried to pull free, and the woman’s cloak fell back from her face and slipped to the ground. She was not old at all. She had filthy skin and tangled hair, and she bared her yellow teeth at Polly, forcing her backwards into the cave towards the brazier.

“You wicked old hag!” Polly screamed at Black Annis. “You ate my brother!”

The woman laughed.

Polly threw the rock at Black Annis. It hit her on the head. The woman let go of Polly. She held her head and growled. Polly was inside the cave, trapped. Black Annis lifted up her claws.

“Can you really knit with those?” Polly asked Black Annis, backing away towards the brazier.

“What?” Black Annis asked in confusion, expecting Polly to be scared.

“Can you knit with them? My grandmother said you had fingernails long enough to knit with.”

“Stupid girl,” said Black Annis. “What would I want with knitting when I have children’s skins?”

Black Annis launched herself at Polly, who side stepped, dancing around the brazier. Black Annis landed in the brazier and started to scream.

Polly ran out of the cave and down the hill, and she did not stop running until she reached her grandmother’s house.

She knew that in years to come, she would be telling her own grandchildren not to go into the Dane Hills.

Copyright © 03 October 2009

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