5,800 Julian Hoxter

words. 1495 7th Avenue, Apartment 22 San Francisco CA 94122, USA

510-898-8218 Hoxterj@gmail.com

The Silent Hedges

by Julian Hoxter

Hoxter / SILENT HEDGES - 1 / 1

CHAPTER ONE

Chapters

PROLOGUE: Dark Entries

One night, long after bedtime and under the pale light of a

fat August Moon, Iris Sperry ventured out of bounds, towards the

pitchy woods of The Estate.

Iris trudged across the familiar fields to the boundary

road that separated her family’s farm from the steep wooded

hillside, always keeping the shadowy forms of her older brother

Rupe and his mate Sketch just within sight ahead of her.

Whenever she might have lost them in the deeper shadows of an

overgrown hedge or ditch, the glowing spark of Sketch’s ever-

present cigarettes revealed their presence and gave her a vivid

Hoxter / SILENT HEDGES - 1 / 2

compass point to follow. This wasn’t the first time she had

followed around after the boys this summer, and Iris knew to

rely on that glow. After a few early attempts that had ended

with Rupe’s muddy boot connecting not so gently with her eleven-

year-old bum she had learned to be cleverer about how she

trailed them - cleverer and much sneakier. By that late summer

evening she had become pretty good at keeping out of sight. She

had also become pretty good at butting her sharp little nose

into every part of Rupe’s business. In short, she had become the

kind of little sister that older brothers dread.

Iris was young, loud, and snotty and she hated not being

allowed to do all the things her brother got to do. Rupe got to

have more fun, just because he was a boy and a mere four years

older. It wasn’t fair that he got more pocket money than her. It

wasn’t fair that he got to take the bus into town on his own. It

certainly wasn’t fair that he got to inhabit the dark evenings

outdoors, when girls her age were only allowed to live outside

in the light; or in the company of parents (which was just as

rubbish). Who knew what wonderful adventures Rupe and his mates

got up to under the summer stars in the Forest of Dean? That

August night Iris was determined to find out.

So Iris told herself she was following Rupe and Sketch

towards The Estate because it wasn’t fair that older brothers

Hoxter / SILENT HEDGES - 1 / 3

had more fun than younger sisters. But she knew perfectly well

that the real reason was because she sort-of-maybe-definitely-

kind-of fancied Sketch. She wasn’t really sure why she liked him

so much. On the surface he wasn’t much to look at and, crime of

all crimes, he was a townie to boot. Sketch, whose real name was

Carl, was a sallow-featured skinny lad who bulked out his frame

by wearing bomber jackets. He also added an inch or so to his

fairly average height with brothel creepers (a liability in the

muddy fields) and topped off his look by forcing his naturally

curly blonde hair into a sharp, gelled up flat top. Sketch

proudly claimed that he was the only psychobilly in the Forest

of Dean. He called everyone "bruv" or "luv" as if he was some

kind of South London geezer, which Iris thought was really cool

and, at fifteen, he was already smoking like a chimney. That

alone should have been enough to put Iris off him but, where

Rupe did his best to ignore his little sister, Sketch always

made a point of talking to her whenever he came round. He didn’t

say all that much - it wasn’t like they hung out together or had

proper conversations or anything - but he always had a friendly

word or two for her; a check-in, or a question. He had even

noticed her first hesitant attempts at defining her own style -

as much as you could when your mum still trimmed your hair and

bought all your clothes for you.

Hoxter / SILENT HEDGES - 1 / 4

Sketch also seemed to appreciate the strength of Iris’s

personality when she fought her corner in her endless arguments

with Rupe. He would stand back and watch her rage, giving her an

amused raised eyebrow. He would even allow her a little nod or

smile when she made a good point, or when she underscored the

moral and logical superiority of her position by kicking Rupe

hard in the shin. She didn’t know how Carl had got his nickname

- and Rupe wouldn’t tell her, despite her pestering - but, as

far as Iris was concerned, Sketch wasn’t sketch at all, in fact

he was all kinds of lush.

Iris wasn’t at all sure that fancying boys was a good

thing, or even what you did about it if they liked you back.

Kissing was probably involved, and that prospect didn’t sit at

all well in Iris’s pre-adolescent stomach. Only also it kind of

did. Maybe. All Iris knew for sure, as she trudged through the

moonlit fields in her purple wellies, was that she liked Sketch.

That meant it didn’t matter that she was out after bedtime. It

didn’t matter if she got caught and punished. It didn’t matter

what the right and wrong of it was at all.

Rupe and Sketch left the farm by the old stile and crossed

the boundary road at the edge of The Estate. They vanished

almost immediately into the thick bushes at the bottom of its

Hoxter / SILENT HEDGES - 1 / 5

steep hill. Behind them Iris hesitated, watching from atop the

stile on the other side of the road. The woods were so much more

than merely out of bounds: they were Out Of Bounds. The Estate

was private property. More importantly, it was posh people’s

private property; the kind you got into actual trouble for

trespassing in. That kind of private property came packaged with

fines and shotguns and gamekeepers and police. Also, the woods

on The Estate had a "reputation" locally. Eleven-year-old Iris

wasn’t sure what they had a reputation for exactly, but people

always talked about them like everyone should know what that

"reputation" was, so nobody had to spell it out. They were a

place you just didn’t go; unless you had a very good reason to

go. Because their reputation was bad; but also, confusingly,

giggly-good sometimes.

It didn’t make any sense to Iris, but it was enough to give

her pause, standing there staring at their dense black mass from

the other side of the road. She climbed down to the verge and

looked up and down. There was a car - a rubbish fourth-hand

hatchback with a cheap body kit, dropped wheels and a fatty

exhaust pipe, a boy-racer car for sure - parked on the verge

about a hundred yards up. In Iris’s limited experience the local

boy-racers were mostly aggressive wankers, so that did nothing

to encourage her to cross to their side of the road. As she

Hoxter / SILENT HEDGES - 1 / 6

hesitated, the car doors opened and an older lad and a girl got

out. The lad put his arm round the girl’s shoulders and led her

off the verge and under the dark trees.

Iris shuffled her feet, hearing mud suck at her boots and

smelling the fresh cow pats that probably comprised a good deal

of the suck, and thought about going back. Then she heard Rupe’s

familiar laugh, low and quick and still quite close by. Right

away her eyes flicked in the direction of the sound and she

caught a brief glimpse of a point of red light moving in the

darkness. The burning end of a ciggie.

Iris’s feet were moving before she was aware she had given

them orders. Her mind was full of a bad big-boy word she had

learned ages ago, when she was nine, although she was still a

little unclear as to its exact meaning. She silently added an

"it" as she crossed the tarmac and ducked under the first

branches. She stopped to orient herself and there was the point

of red light again, ahead and a little further inside the trees.

Now it was accompanied by small sounds of crackling footsteps

and bodies trying to move quietly through an unseen maze of wood

and thorns. Iris followed the light and sound, keeping herself

to the silent grass on the verge at the very edge of the trees

and pausing every now and again to be sure she was still in

contact with the boys as they continued their nocturnal journey.

Hoxter / SILENT HEDGES - 1 / 7

They were moving deliberately slowly now, obviously trying to

follow the couple from the car in the darkness. Iris scoffed,

because they were making too much noise to be proper stealthy.

In the dark they couldn’t pick where their feet landed, but

still Iris was sure she could have done the job more quietly

than her enormous lumbering lummox of a brother. In fact she

was.

Iris’s own oblique flanking maneuver was taking her close

behind the boy-racer car when she heard another sound of

movement from just inside the woods. Something was moving close

by, but it didn’t sound like walking or running, it was more

regular somehow - it sounded like someone kicking a football

through tall thick grass, over and over. The sound was

accompanied by heavy breathing and by occasional grunts of

effort. Whatever it was, this new nearby noise was loud enough

to mask the sounds of Rupe and Sketch approaching from inside

the tree line. Idly Iris wondered why whoever it was didn’t just

pick their football up; but somewhere or other in her brain she

also sort of understood that there was no actual football

involved here. And probably no kicking... Then, from the

darkness ahead, a girl giggled. Slowly, carefully, Iris angled

back and sideways from the car and into the first bushes and

trees.

Hoxter / SILENT HEDGES - 1 / 8

Immediately the deep darkness of the woods closed in and a

low-grade stuffy, oppressive sort of feeling crept over her. It

was like the darkness was pushing a thin pillow gently over her

face, but somehow she could feel the stuffy feeling spread over

her whole body. No, she told herself, it wasn’t stuffy exactly,

it was like that feeling when you knew somebody was looking at

you in the school playground on break - you just knew - but,

whenever you turned around, in the mess of everyone running

around, you couldn’t see who it was. Only, right then, it felt

like it was everyone in the playground was watching her. It felt

like, when she actually looked at them, they would all be

laughing and playing and shouting and running, but when she had

her back to them they would all stop, and stare at her, and...

It felt like being stared at by lots and lots of invisible eyes.

Iris was a country girl and she was used to country

darkness. She knew all about the funny games your mind plays on

you when you were really alone in the real dark. Her own

friendly bedroom was black as pitch and somehow different at

nighttime. Only this wasn’t like getting out of bed in the dark

to have a pee. This was the wild woods, so who knew what wild

things were lurking in the dark, staring and planning? Planning.

Iris took a big girl breath, just like she had taught herself to

do when she needed the loo during the night and there were

Hoxter / SILENT HEDGES - 1 / 9

seventeen imaginary monsters lurking between her and the bedroom

door. She told herself that she wasn’t scared; country girls

aren’t scared of the dark. Not like rubbish townies. Probably.

Besides, she reminded herself, her big brother was only a few

yards away, so all she had to do was call out to him if she

really needed to. Not that she ever would. Because she wasn’t

scared. Planning... So there was no reason to. Yeah, she wasn’t

scared, but she was a little bit turned around. Better to check.

Sensible...

Iris had only taken a few steps away from the verge, but

already the road and the boy-racer car were lost from sight. She

stared hard into the darkness, ears open for the direction of

sounds. She heard nothing other than the low grunts and the

rhythmic grass-kicking noise. Iris thought she knew what that

was all about - at least sort of, and maybe mostly, and also ugh

- and she had no desire to blunder into it from behind. Or from

in front, or from any angle for that matter, pa-leez-and-thank-

you-very-much. She took a few cautious paces further in.

Suddenly, ahead and to the right a little, there was the glowing

red point of Sketch’s ciggie again. The boys had stopped. They

were waiting. Or watching. Or something. The-grass-kicking-

noise-that-wasn’t-somebody-kicking-grass, now with a hint of

Hoxter / SILENT HEDGES - 1 / 10

shadowy movement, low to the ground, was directly between her

and Rupe and Sketch.

Carefully and quietly, Iris circled wide to get behind them

again. She made good progress until her wellie splashed in

shallow water. She looked down to see a tiny vestige of

moonlight glimmer on the rippled surface of a narrow forest

stream. Iris changed her direction slightly, carefully skirting

the water. As she knew, from her own cold damp experience,

woodland streams in hilly country could be deeper than they

looked. Their currents were swift and even the narrow ones

carved channels and left dark pools and overhangs that wouldn’t

be fun in the dark. Occasional trickles of moonlight splashed on

brambles and branches, pulling them out of the near-black and

giving her eyes tiny respite as she quietly passed on.

She was proud that she was making much less noise than Rupe

and Sketch had. She just hoped she was still on course to get

behind them again. Then the trusty red spot glowed bright as

Sketch took a drag. Iris froze. At the same time the evening

breeze blew a little gap in the branches and weak moonlight

filtered down, outlining the two older boys just in front of

her. Rupe was on his knees, peering at something through a

sprawling bramble bush. Sketch stood to one side and a little

behind, perched on a narrow stepping stone in the middle of the

Hoxter / SILENT HEDGES - 1 / 11

stream Iris had almost blundered into.

"Go on, bruv." That was Sketch, whispering so quietly Iris

almost missed the words.

"Yeah, yeah, in a minute," but Rupe kept staring through

the tangle of the bush.

"Don’t be a perv, you fucking perv."

Sketch balanced on one leg and aimed a not-so-gentle kick

at Rupe’s giant lumbering lummox arse. His foot connected and he

raised his arms in mock celebration: he shoots, he scores. Rupe

flicked him a quick V-sign and rose, taking a big breath.

"I am the spirit of the woods," Rupe bellowed in his

deepest big-boy voice. "I am the ancient spirit of the green

woods and you have angered me!"

There was a frightened girlish squeak from the other side

of the bush accompanied by an abundance of scuffling sounds.

Iris caught a glimpse of pale flesh - she couldn’t tell if it

was male or female - in the thin moonlight. An angry male voice

called out.

"What the fuck?"

"You have. Angered me..." Rupe repeated with a shrug. He

looked to Sketch for help.

"Who the fuck is there?"

More scuffling and cursing followed. A hand reached through

Hoxter / SILENT HEDGES - 1 / 12

the brambles towards the sound of Rupe’s voice and snapped back

as it found many prickles.

"Ow fuck."

"Lance, no. Don’t leave me. I’m scared."

"Don’t be stupid, Shel, it’s just some wanker winding us

up."

Safe behind their impenetrable wall of brambles, Rupe and

Sketch laughed silently. Sketch rocked on his feet, desperately

trying to keep his balance. Hot ash from his cigarette spun off

and landed in the water, creating a confusion of tiny moonlit

ripples before it sank.

"I want to go home."

"You’re having a laugh?"

"I in’t. I want to go home."

Lance howled brokenly in anger.

"I’m going to fucking chin you, you fucking pervert!"

Sketch gestured at Rupe, as if in agreement. Rupe was

oblivious, on his knees again and heaving silent laughter, so

Sketch took over playing the role of scary spirit.

"You pollute the harmony of my kingdom with your immoral

behavior."

"Lance..."

The angry shadow named Lance kicked at the brambles in

Hoxter / SILENT HEDGES - 1 / 13

frustration, catching his jeans on their thorns and pulling them

back angrily.

"Begone foul trespassers!" Sketch was warming to the part,

waving his arms in the dark and adding some homemade spooky

reverb for effect. "Begone and do not sully my kingdom again!"

"Lance, take me home, now!"

"Fuck’s sake," said Lance in a tone that was now as

resigned as it was frustrated. She heard the sounds of them

moving off towards the road, with Lance offering one final

promise to his tormentors hiding somewhere in the uncaring

night.

"I’m going to find out who you sad wankers are. I’m going

to find out. And, when I do, I’m going to fucking kill you!"

Then doors slammed and the car sped off in spray of earth,

accompanied by the impotent roar of its unlawful exhaust system.

Then the car was gone and Sketch was doing a happy stomping

psychobilly wrecking dance on the stepping stone in celebration.

He span around and around, his arms flailing and flecks of

cigarette ash sparking orange and red on their death dive to the

stream below.

"Oh bruv. Bruv!" Sketch was loving it.

"Yeah."

Iris watched Sketch dance because, well, obviously. His

Hoxter / SILENT HEDGES - 1 / 14

joyful wrecking was restricted by the size of his personal

stepping stone mosh pit, but the dance was powerful and, Iris

felt, proper exciting. That in-the-background tingling sensation

from the woods grew inside her as she watched and now, without

really being aware of the change, she began to welcome it. Iris

followed the glowing track of Sketch’s ciggie and the fall of

his ash. Tiny red fireworks flashed bright across the darkness;

futile elemental invaders snuffed out as they hit the water.

"I mean, Bruv?"

"Yeah! Right?" Rupe was being as eloquent as usual...

And then the dark water began to roil. In the patchy

moonlight, Iris saw it ripple and splash. But its ripples looked

wrong somehow, they seemed much too big in relation to the tiny

burning flecks that hit the surface. Iris sparked logically back

to half-remembered school lessons as she wondered, how much

could a little bit of ash actually weigh? The ripples were too

big. It was like the stream was actually recoiling in disgust

from the polluting ash. Faster than water should move, tiny

independent waves also rolled back and forth, across the

stream’s current. That was impossible - wasn’t it? The tiny

waves broke against the stones of the bank. The stepping

stone...

Hoxter / SILENT HEDGES - 1 / 15

Now Iris couldn’t take her eyes off the moonlit stream.

Only a few seconds had passed since Sketch had begun to wreck.

His ash had only just begun to land in the water, but it felt

like it had been flashing and falling forever. She stared and

stared at the impossible swirling patterns. The dim light must

be playing tricks, she thought, because water doesn’t move like

that - not like it’s proper thinking - it can’t... But it did.

As Sketch danced obliviously above it, the stream splashed and

raged itself into a miniature storm. Tiny, white-flecked waves

reached up towards his stomping shoes like a thousand tiny

grasping hands...

The stuffy feeling flowed up ever stronger from the earth

under Iris’s boots, like the angry waves flowed up from the

water. No matter how hard she tried to argue herself out of it,

the evidence of her own eyes proved that either she was going

crazy or the water was somehow alive and actually proper angry.

She wasn’t keen on either possibility, but at least there was

something she could do about the impossible one. The more

impossible one. Her mouth had just formed the "S" shape to call

out to Sketch when he wobbled, mid-dance. His foot slithered

briefly across the slick surface of the stepping stone and the

toe of his muddy brothel creeper flicked the surface of the

stream.

Hoxter / SILENT HEDGES - 1 / 16

In a terrible flash of a moment, his foot was yanked under

water and he was down. His leg in the water and the other on the

rock splayed much too wide. Iris heard a cry of pain and the

sound of denim ripping, then the great splash as his body

slammed into the water. On its way down Sketch’s face smacked

onto the stepping stone. His head bounced sickeningly, flecks of

dark blood from his nose and mouth spraying thinly in the

moonlight, then the stream had swallowed all of him into its

sudden plughole swirl. The water closed over him and he was

gone.

For a long moment, from their separate vantage points, Rupe

and Iris just stared in shock at the smooth surface of the

stream. Then Rupe was scrambling for the edge of the water and

plunging his hands and arms into the cold darkness of the

stream.

"Sketch! Mate? Fuck."

Iris was more scared than she had been in her whole life.

She was more scared than the time with the Jackson’s big dog;

more than when Rupe had swung her round and round over the edge

of the duckpond and let go of one hand; more scared even than

when he told her where their poor farm cows went in the big

lorry. Her mind replayed the last few seconds over and over, as

if to check she had really seen what she thought she had seen. A

Hoxter / SILENT HEDGES - 1 / 17

helpful part of herself desperately tried to discount the parts

that didn’t make sense and to file everything under "accident"

and "slippery." But the inconveniently truthful part of her

wouldn’t buy what the rational part was selling. She wanted to

help Rupe, of course, but the ongoing collision between the

world she thought she knew and the world that had just announced

itself, was getting in the way of things like basic movement.

Until one side smashed the other out of the way, her body -

tingling, tingling everywhere - was petrified and wouldn’t take

orders. All the time, Sketch was under water somewhere, alone

and drowning.

Rupe was in the stream now, almost waist deep and still

frantically plunging his arms.

"Oh mate. Oh mate. I can’t..."

The mote of Iris that could still think clearly wondered

why the stream didn’t take Rupe like it had taken Sketch. Was it

still too busy with its first victim? Was there a thing in the

water that came and went and moved around, or was it everywhere?

Was it, somehow, the stream itself? Also, why didn’t Sketch

stand up? The water wasn’t so deep. He could feel the bottom,

yeah? He could just push off and up... Unless he was knocked out

when he fell. His poor face, she thought, his poor sketchy face.

Was the thing still there? The moonlit water flowed swiftly past

Hoxter / SILENT HEDGES - 1 / 18

Rupe’s frantically questing arms and Iris felt her body make its

first movement as her neck turned her face slowly in the

direction of the current...

Then she was splashing along the bank as fast as her purple

wellies would carry her. Rupe looked up in surprise as she flew

past him.

"Iris?"

Yup, that was her name, but she didn’t have time for him

now. Downstream, the water vanished once more into the darkness

under overhanging trees. Iris stared desperately in front of

her, scared of slipping but unwilling to slow down. As she ran

she willed the moonlight to break through and show her what lay

ahead. It didn’t oblige. She glanced back without slowing her

pace, noting the gentle curve of the bank back where Rupe still

stood, midstream, staring at her incredulously. It was curving -

if it kept the angle she would need to move - it was so dark...

She side-stepped to the right as she ran and her left foot

splashed in water - puddle or stream? She side-stepped right

again, hurriedly and whanged her face a sharp, glancing blow

against the trunk of a small tree.

Iris flew off at an angle, the sudden pain piercing the

stuffiness of the woods and knocking her unthinkable thoughts

into the long grass. She landed in a hard jumble on wet stones,

Hoxter / SILENT HEDGES - 1 / 19

ripping her jeans and scraping her hands and knees. She tasted

blood in her mouth and tried to get past the immediate,

inconvenient thought of how annoyed her mum would be when she

saw her jeans...

Too dazed to cry, Iris ran a hand over her face and it came

away slick. Without thinking, she reached out and her fingers

found running water. Cold. She was rinsing the blood off in the

stream before she realized what she was doing. She pulled her

hand back fast, but nothing reached out to grab her. The surface

was still calm, apart from the shadowy hint of entirely rational

ripples spreading outwards from where her hand had been. She

stared into the darkness past the bank and, as she did so, her

focus recovered enough to sense a darker than dark shape as it

passed across her vision. A hump in the water; something

floating...

"The current, Rupe," she shouted over her shoulder.

"Current’s got him!"

Iris scrambled to her feet and stumbled on. She held a

protective arm out in front of her, trying not to imagine all

the invisible twigs waiting just ahead to impale her eyeballs in

the dark. The last thing she needed now was another encounter

with a tree trunk. How long could you hold your breath? Iris

didn’t know, but it already seemed like an age since the stream

Hoxter / SILENT HEDGES - 1 / 20

had claimed Sketch. She heard heavy footsteps behind her and

hoped that meant Rupe had understood.

The water, sharply cold on her bloody hand, felt ten times

colder as it rose to her chest. Iris’s wellies stumbled along

the rocky bottom as she half waded and half doggy paddled after

the dark shape. The stream changed depth rapidly as she

struggled on, from Iris thigh to Iris armpit and back again. She

tried not to think about what would happen if the water went

deeper than tiptoes. Iris could swim, sort of, but that sort of

counted only in a warm swimming pool with no current and proper

lighting - to say nothing of an invisible stream monster. At

least she had the current with her, but it was pushing the shape

ahead of her as well. The water in her wellies was a big drag on

progress and she wasn’t making up much ground. Splashing close

behind her told its story of Rupe following, but Iris couldn’t

spare him a glance as the dark lump bumped up against a smooth

rock. The shape slowed and swung out, sideways across her path.

It felt like now or never and Iris lunged for it, pushing off as

hard as she could on the slippery rocks of the stream bed. She

jumped half out of the water as her hands reached - and grabbed

shiny bomber jacket cloth. Before she could set her feet again,

Sketch’s body pulled her forward. Her head submerged as she was

dragged along and she lost a Wellington boot to the current and

Hoxter / SILENT HEDGES - 1 / 21

the confusion.

Her injured cheek stung fiercely as she went under. She

almost lost her grip as the shock of the cold opened her mouth

and her eyes. She began to swallow water - she hoped it was

water - the wrong way just as something, a liquid shadow a tone

lighter than the general darkness, flicked briefly across her

vision. Then Rupe grabbed her hair and lifted her, already

coughing and choking, into the air. He snagged Sketch with his

other enormous man-boy hand and set his feet, pulling against

the current. Slowly he made ground backwards, towards the bank.

Iris set her own feet, one purple booted and one now only tartan

socked, and helped pull. The current was against them now and

Sketch was a limp weight and really heavy, despite the buoyancy

of the water.

Then her back was against the bank. She scrambled up and

she and Rupe dragged Sketch half out of the water with one great

heave. The stream still had his legs and Iris reached back into

the water to swing them sideways towards the bank as Rupe pulled

at his friend from the shoulders. He came out slowly, a soggy

black lump with a hint of slack white face on the dark ground.

Rupe shook him, but the lump didn’t respond. He shook him again.

"Sketch? Mate? Mate!"

Nothing.

Hoxter / SILENT HEDGES - 1 / 22

"Fuck..." Her brother looked at her in panic. Iris thought

desperately, the cut on her cheek hurting again and blood

dripping slowly down into her mouth. She spat and remembered at

the same instant.

"Push on his chest," Iris told him. "I saw it on the telly.

Like, push him over and over."

"Right... we did this. In school..."

Rupe nodded. He straddled Sketch, sitting heavily down on

his stomach and began to push. Nothing seemed to be happening.

The lump was still just a lump. Rupe looked up at her again.

"You have to hold his nose and breathe into his mouth."

"What?" Iris was suddenly incredibly self-conscious. "Me?"

"Well, I in’t doing it."

"He’s your mate, enit?"

"But you fancy him, enit?"

"I. What? No. Fuck off I do."

Rupe rolled his eyes, "Iris, you’re here, right?"

She was. But that. That was like kissing - boy-face and

mouths and all...

"Fuck’s sake, Iris." Rupe kept pumping his chest. He looked

at her desperately.

Fuck’s sake, Iris...

"Right..."

Hoxter / SILENT HEDGES - 1 / 23

She scrambled over, above Sketch’s face and looked down,

noticing idly that the gel in his flattop was still mostly

holding its shape. But death-pale-lump-Sketch-face was not

nearly as appealing as grinning-live-Sketch-face. His mouth hung

open and snot, or something else icky, was leaking out of his

nose. It’s not kissing, she told herself. It’s not kissing.

Because if it is kissing and if Sketch is dead, then your first

kiss... Fuck’s sake, Iris.

She took a big breath and leaned down, tasting snot and

feeling icky cold wet skin against her lips.

"Hold his nose," Rupe was telling her.

She squeezed her fingers round Sketch’s snotty nose and

blew out her air, then pulled back, looking expectantly down at

him. Because one breath would be enough, right? Nothing.

"Keep going," Rupe was telling her.

Iris nodded, wiping at the icky snot around Sketch’s mouth.

She breathed in, she pinched the snotty nose, she cold-fished

the mouth below her, she breathed out. Breathed in... Rupe

pumped, she breathed, Sketch just lay there.

"I don’t..."

It wasn’t working. Maybe they were doing it wrong, but Iris

had no better clue what doing it right would be. She looked

around desperately for inspiration. Rupe. The stream. Dark

Hoxter / SILENT HEDGES - 1 / 24

trees. Sketch lying there limp, his foot dangling in the water.

His foot. She grabbed for it and pulled, but it wouldn’t come

out. The water roiled sullenly around his brothel creeper.

"Give him back!" She heard herself shouting at the stream.

Rupe glanced over his shoulder.

"What the fuck, Iris?"

"He’s not yours, he’s ours! Give him back."

She leaned over the stream and gave it both eyeballs.

Because, right?

"I’m sorry about the fag ash... The fire! I reckon he’s

proper sorry too. Now. Right? But you paid him back for that

already, enit?"

I’m talking to a stream, she thought at herself

incredulously. Then a drop of her blood fell into the water. The

surface rippled again, but this time the little waves moved

quickly towards the blood, swamping the ordinary ripples from

the drop. Eagerly, Iris thought, completely disgusted. But,

maybe?

"You like that? Well there’s more for you. But only if you

let him go. Only then. Here..."

She squeezed her cheek and hissed at the pain, but she

could feel slow drips of blood trickling down her face. She

scraped at them and flicked the drops from her fingers. The

Hoxter / SILENT HEDGES - 1 / 25

water-thing ate them hungrily.

"More like that. I’ll come back even. I’ll come back. I’ll

give you more. For him. I promise."

She pulled at Sketch’s foot. She pulled and pulled and

pulled, hard as she could, hard as you like, but it still

wouldn’t move.

"Come on! I’ll give you more. Every week. Like, every week

for a year, enit? I promise."

And in that moment of terror and desperation Iris meant it.

And then she was tumbling over herself. And Sketch’s foot was on

the bank. She scrambled back and breathed into him again. And

again. Nothing. Iris was angry now. In fact she was furious. The

stream had given her what she wanted, but it was tricksy-

tricksy, right? Ha ha here’s the dead guy you asked for, now pay

me... She stood, shivering from cold and anger. She stamped and

span around in frustration. Rupe stopped pumping Sketch’s chest

and sat back. He looked up at her sadly, what could you do?

Then Iris did the last thing she could think of. It was the

only thing she hadn’t done yet. She took a step and jumped high,

curling up in midair and aiming for Sketch’s chest. She landed

hard, bouncing off him and winding herself in the process.

Something cracked loudly; she hoped it wasn’t something in her.

She lay there, sprawled and scratching for a breath. She heard

Hoxter / SILENT HEDGES - 1 / 26

herself coughing a watery cough, but she didn’t feel the cough

in her throat...

Sketch groaned and shifted. He coughed again, water spewing

out of his mouth. Immediately Rupe was shaking him and laughing.

Iris got back on her knees and stared down happily as Sketch

opened his eyes.

"Ow," he managed, between coughs. Then he looked up at

them, focusing. "Bruv... Iris? Hello luv... What?"

Rupe hugged Iris tight to him. Any other time she would

have kneed him in his parts, but right now it felt alright.

"Iris, you legend," was all he said. But that was alright

also.

Sketch looked puzzled, his eyes flicked around, looking at

Rupe and Iris, but then around and beyond and behind them.

"Oh." He said, smiling tightly as he stared beyond them

into the dark woods, "you brought people to see me. That’s

proper nice..."

Iris and Rupe glanced around. There was nobody else with

them.

"What do you mean, mate?"

"The people, bruv..." Sketch mumbled, closing his eyes and

breathing deep. "All the funny people..."

Hoxter / SILENT HEDGES - 1 / 27

;>;>;>;