Anemogram

By Rebecca Gransden

A young girl emerges out of the woods. David is in the middle of wrestling with an unsatisfactory existence when she enters his life. He decides to look out for the girl, but he soon discovers she may not be all she seems.

Together they decide to seek out a place of safety, away from a world that could misunderstand their relationship. As their troubles come to the surface, events take a turn that will have life-changing consequences for the both of them.

254 pages.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Cardboard Wall Empire
• Release date: Aug 25, 2015
• ISBN: 9781386342571

Rebecca Gransden

Rebecca Gransden has always lived by the sea. She tends to write about the edges of things so if you inhabit the fringes you may find something to like. Please consider leaving a review of her books anywhere. It really helps indie authors.

Book preview

I

The children were over . Slack whispers curled around awkward noises. A park bench gleamed doomed hibiscus dosages. One sat prostrate and happy, the other forlorn and weeping. A gouge of sacrificial end light daubed in swathes across the park. Tiny mosquitoes ravaged their faces and executed whining flights to mask the swimming trial they had set for themselves. Another boy travailed the high wire fence. He saw them and ran.

Today the girl was caught in sunlight, her body arched on baked earth. She was surrounded by wispy grasses and dying wildflowers. Her hair, bleached to the tips, was ruffled and held thorny twiglets and a multitude of seed heads. She felt the firm ground beneath her, full of roots and splintered chalk. Her hands were rough, her fingertips tough and flaking. This afternoon she needed some food.

The yard bared forth with tangled wires and huge concrete slabs, the sort taken from the demolition of an old underpass or council toilet block. Metal rods ejected themselves at every interval, with grass internalising each orifice. She had slept in a corner, under projecting concrete through a temperate night. Insects didn’t bite this girl.

A tree had grown through the fence, its trunk engulfing the rusting wire to make a co-dependent arrangement. The tree reached high above her. As she had slept she had dreamt of it; its leaves rustling against the pale moon sky, its baleful outline calling down the stars. Now she approached it in the sunbeams. She ran her fingers over the smooth bark and felt the interjecting wires as they emerged to be consumed by wood.

She skipped along the fence. It sagged from the top, maybe with age, perhaps from people climbing over it. Her boots scuffed up mountains of dust which she soon added to by forcefully thwacking them across the earth until her ankles hurt. She reached the dip under the fence, her entrance yesterday, and slipped under.

This time she ran around the outside of the yard. The grass was thicker and she boldly whizzed to challenge the wind. The surround of this dump went on for an age. If there was a smooth bit of fence she ran her hand along it as she ran. A rusted projection scratched at her but didn’t break the skin. She slowed, breathing hard but distracted by the oncoming entrance to the yard ahead, and the dusty track which moved away from this place.

She didn’t want to go there yet. So she turned and headed across open wasteland, into the domain of the sun and its cherishing death. She bobbed up and down and held out her white dress, spinning and drawing in the warm air. Her legs were cherubim podgy and she moved like an electrified hamster. The wasteland contoured down a textured valley which in turn vaulted into the distance and away. She stood in its open magnificence, its blanched earth under the blue-white sky of God. Everything in the distance; she would play unseen. She left her giggles behind her as she took off running. The ground flattened like an ancient seabed and she took her little body over it. She forgot her feet as she chased her own arms down. The surrounding landscape stayed static and true as she fed her hunger for abandonment. Her heels caught stone and a sudden unevenness which slowed her, her laughs lower and her focus redirected. The tree line ahead was coming up fast. Time to look and see.

She crept ahead in the sunlight, stopping and starting like the spiders she loved. The trees stood in an avenue breaking the wasteland from fields beyond. They shaded her as she approached, her creeping stance designed to welcome animals and evade the eyes of people. An abundance of brambles greeted her, fecund and laden with bulging blackberries. She picked at them with her tiny hands, the fruits so full they barely fit her palm. Juice left her mouth with ease and she used the back of her hand to direct it back in and not waste any. She never stained her dress.

The trees above caught the eerie wind from another time they always did. She sat on the cool grass, long and luscious. A few sun drops dappled about her. Her legs were covered in dry dust. She brushed it away and took off her boots. She bashed them on the grass throwing up diffuse balls of flying particles, the patterned light catching them as they moved into the shaded air. She coughed with her little lungs and rubbed her eyes. The smell of petrol wafted from over the wasteland, from the direction of the yard.

There was a bird above her. It sang out, out to the wasteland. It excreted its mess, which fell to the ground near her. She saw it had been eating the blackberries also. The song the bird sang was shrill and stammering. She lay back on the soft grass and looked upon the encompassing canopy. It was a strange light, to her, the light amongst treetops. Full of itself and pressing against the sky. It seemed trapped but happy. The bird moved into her sights. It bounced on the branches, stopping to launch its song. She liked to stay still. It was a game; a game with the bird. It flew away. She saw its shape head across the wasteland and out of sight. Things were in her hair, rolling and pulling. She reached up. Two beetles, one small, one big. She shut them in her hands and stood. They wriggled and scratched. She took them over to the brambles and let them skitter away into the leaves.

Sunbeams lowered through the tree strewn edges. She would need different food soon. The brambles gave up more fruit which she forced down elegantly. She touched her hair. It felt dry and contained debris. She pulled at the bits of twig, the blades of faded grass and remnants of undistinguishable things. Satisfied, she relinquished the avenue and set out to retrace her path over the wasteland.

A wind from all directions raced over the flat. She skipped along, sometimes losing her breath to it. The distance seemed to be pressing into the edges now, scaring her a little. She began to run, first in fun, buffeted by the swirling breezes, feeling them whip her dress and flap her hair, then she was taken with dread; she felt pursued by a monster, its breath behind her and all around. Her feet ploughed the earth, her heart propelling her over the wasteland, this beast ready and prowling behind her. She felt it blowing its angry air, trying to seek her out. Had it seen her frantic boots, her tiny frame out on the wasteland?

The yard was up ahead. She looked for the fence. Patience was needed for her intention to go to the front, to find someone to help her. If she wanted food she would have to be invisible and watch. She’d had the fruit, she could wait until tomorrow.

The yard was quiet, a dusty breeze scooted across the ground, and the fence cast a lattice shadow in the dying light. Her feet calmed as she reached it and clasped the wire mesh, not daring to look behind her. The wind made an empty noise from the wasteland. Surely the monster had gone. She walked the fence to the earthen dip, shaped as if hewn for her tiny frame. She slid under and back to her spot. They hadn’t discovered her last night so they wouldn’t tonight either. She settled under the concrete overhang. It was still here. The warmth of the evening made her tired. The tree loomed, its branches twisting unnaturally, it appeared to be trying to escape from the fence, perhaps from the rust slowly seeping through its innards. The concrete above her felt warm to her touch. It protruded enough to cover her but she could still see the sky above her with its wandering clouds and vapour trails.

She took a tremulous breath. The day began to drown in a pause of reticent longings. How warm she was, how her wishes played on the balmy mists. A cacophony of ragamuffin starlings released the call to dusk. Her hand wandered the air plucking unknown notes for her dreams, tracing the horizon against the trees. She heard the murderous cries of the fox. Undisturbed she nestled the earth, its comforting smell lulling her to sleep.

Morning came with a fierce white light. She had slept deeply and into the day. Heat wrapped her head and dryness parched her throat. She sat up, slowly avoiding the concrete above her and edged her way from beneath it, bright and refreshed. Today she would find something for her stomach. She would steal it like she always did. The tree looked sad as she left and she felt a pull to help it.

The sun shone with wicked intent, like it was black inside. She walked the path along the fence from yesterday, slipping under it and along, just like before. The grasses became intertwined with wire as she faced the nearing entrance to the yard. A small hut sat opposite, guarding the double wide wire gate. A worn stony track led away from the yard snaking between stringy trees off to some road somewhere. Silence came from the woods and settled over the area. The hut was wooden with a mismatched window and door. She crouched behind a wedge of grass entangled at the corner of the yard and waited.

Her thirst drove her out. She had seen no one and the sun shone from straight up. She walked over to the hut and knocked on the door with two weakling knocks. She heard no one, there was no one. She could reach up to the door handle, so she pulled it down but the door was locked. The window to the cabin stretched almost its full length but she was too small to see inside. There was a sign on the hut which read: ‘MACVICKARIS’, followed by a number. She looked around the outside of the hut and found some tangled pieces of wire. She pulled them apart, finding a thin length with some strength. The door was painted the yellow of sickness and didn’t fit the doorframe. She doodled the wire about the lock and it popped open easy.

She stepped into a makeshift office. A table covered with things with no connection to each other straddled the window wall; a toilet roll, an old metal box, some magazines about motorbikes, a polar bear paperweight.

The hut had a second room. She grappled a folding plastic door open. A pokey space opened up; curtains drawn obstructing the sun, rows of bookshelves rammed with faded newspapers, and a fold-up bed, unfolded and unmade. There was a large fridge in the corner half covering the back window and its moth green curtains. She opened it. There was some orange juice, unopened, which she drank thankfully and wholly, and something wrapped in cling film. She inhaled it with supreme evaluation, and scoffed the corned beef sandwich. The room had the aroma of old man’s armchair and the appearance of a people smuggler’s basement. She appraised the bed and returned to the front office.

Warm, sweet air filled the office coming in through the open door. She pumped the office chair down to her height and climbed on. It was comfortable and stank of fumes and aftershave. She spun and spun and spun, though she found her short legs didn’t get much traction. An insect crawled over the window on the outside of the hut. It was bright green and had long legs and projected a character in its fluid scuttle. She watched it hover over a brown mass attached to the glass. It ate what it found.

The place pounded with heat now. She was restless and bored. How could she manage this life any longer? She did things in the summertime and almost died in her few winters. The voice spoke. The voice of Tinker. Where is everyone? Do you remember when we found that frog and it jumped out of the water right onto your face? She laughed. It was like it had known you its whole life. It had a twisted foot didn’t it but it still jumped high and when you put it in the water it swam like a professional. She sat back in the chair and raised her legs to listen. Aah, you want the story. Alright, but just the short version.

There appeared in a woodland glade a creature of tremendous beauty. The creature never ventured from the glade and was never sad. He watched the animals of the wood as they collected their food and ran between the trees. One day a fox he had seen many times before appeared under a great oak. The fox was beautiful, like him; its fur lustrous, eyes gleaming and the most wonderful tail in all the wood. As the creature watched, a rabbit came out from the undergrowth chomping on sweet grass. The fox, without hesitation, pounced and wrapped its jaws around the rabbit’s body. The rabbit cried as the fox dug its teeth in, cracking its thrashing frame and crushing it lifeless. The fox took its kill into the wood leaving the beautiful creature to weep.

The creature sat for many days and nights in sadness. In the moonlight of a cloudless sky the fox appeared to the creature. ‘I have seen your sadness and I am sorry. I have no other way. But for you I will kill no more, I promise you this.’ With that the fox stepped back into the wood and the creature slept.

Many days passed before the creature saw the fox again. The fox wandered into the glade with a question. ‘I wonder,’  it said, ‘if I might lay here for a while?’  The fox’s coat was dull and patchy, its eyes lost and its tail bare. The creature looked upon the fox with great sadness, knowing in its heart it had caused the fox’s suffering. The fox went into its final sleep and the creature feasted on its flesh.

The office was stuffy, flat and swamped with dull reflections. She climbed from the chair and headed outside. An old dilapidated truck with no wheels sat to the side of the hut. She went over to it, discovering she could fit underneath the back of it. She looked at the mess of busted pipes and metal joined by the flimsiest of wills. She smiled as she saw the webs of her beloved spiders, webs of different consistencies and compositions. No grass grew underneath; always dark and always cool. There were smooth rocks and broken bricks and a faded plastic cerise bin lid. She stretched out over the relieving earth. Her head rolled to one side without thinking. She could see the yard from here; slowly roasting machinery and building parts, baked grasses and junk piles, all laid out for the heavens to blast and condemn to dust. She heard the cry of a lone crow doppler away behind her, and the unwelcome chug of a car engine. The sound revealed the vehicle’s route along the dusty track. She moved herself into the darkest shadow and watched the road.

II

Abattered silver Daihatsu Charade made its way toward the hut, the tires striking dry pebbles, its engine making the full sound of years of use. She peeped through a gap in a pile of bricks and vacant scrub all in shadow. The car pulled up to the end of the track, where there was a rectangular space which had been gravelled long ago, and sat with the engine running.

She couldn’t see inside the car for sun glare on the windows. The engine fell silent and the car sat gleaming in the stillness.

Birds sang in some trees further down the track and the percussive whine of working machinery drifted in from somewhere far off behind the woods. She looked at the car through sharp reflected light and saw a flash of skin, of arm. The car door made a deep click and rattle as it opened. The sun flashed on glass and left shadow streaks in her eyes. A man stood by the car. She looked at the door to the hut; open and different from how he’d left it. Her throat went dry and she turned and watched him by the car door. He wore jeans and a hooded short-sleeved t-shirt and looked too old for school but like he wished he was back there. A dark tattoo covered one side of his neck. He leant over and into the front seat, fiddled with something and muttered to himself.

She watched the man as he did this thing he was doing, trying to figure him out, hear his voice, look at how he moved. The car was old but well cared for. No rust around the edges, with sparkling glass. The man rubbed the back of his neck, standing tall and arching his back. He yawned and shut the car door.

He went round to the boot, opened it to retrieve a bag, which he flung over his shoulder, and then turned to the hut looking at his feet. He sauntered forward and struggled with his pocket. She drew her body in tight as he neared the hut. He raised his head and took one step back, then one forward, then leant left then right, taking in as much of the inside of the hut as he could through the open door. The noise of distant machinery grew louder as a breeze came over. He went back to the car, to the boot, and lifted out what appeared to be a table leg. His face was blank. He walked quickly into the hut.

First silence for a moment or so. He was most likely edging his way in, fearing he’d have to use his weapon. Then heavy footsteps over the wooden floor, then a frustrated voice with incomprehensible words. Silence. He came out front, still holding the table leg. His  face was white. She feared him then. His army boots stomped the ground in front of