It didn’t seem like anything odd. After all, children do childish things, especially ones as young as little Molly.
She were out playing in the back garden as I watched from the window, making sure she didn’t wander out into the fields. Those endless flat fields, with churned black soil as far as the eye can see. Except if you look north. If you look north to where land meets sky, you can see the windbreak: a line of identical trees, planted by some ancient farmer.
It were a fine day. I don’t know when I noticed it, but a strange noise drifted in the open window. Like a song that taunts you as you try and remember it. Like a melody with the notes stripped out.
“What’s that noise, Duckling?” I called out.
Little Molly used her bucket and spade to carefully gouge a hole into the earth. Her face scrunched up, but she wouldn’t answer. So I stood there and I listened, and it took a while before I realised that odd sound came from her.
“I’m asking you. What are you humming?”
See, Molly were a well-mannered child, and it certainly wasn’t like her to ignore her old granddad. But that’s exactly what she did. She just kept on with that unsettled hum-humming, digging that hole to nowhere, her little face all twisted.
Now, I’m of a generation where bad behaviour’s not to be coddled, so I nearly went out to give her a good telling-off. But children do childish things, I reminded myself. Best leave her to it. She’d be fine by the time her mum got home.
Debs returned from the Rose & Crown late that night. It’s the only pub in the village, and by the time she rattled the door open the sky were nothing but a dark void beyond the windows. Kicking off her shoes, she sank down onto the sofa. Molly woke just like always, stumbling downstairs in her pyjamas and climbing up into her mother’s lap.
“Funny thing today,” Debs said to me. “It were Ted. He heard a noise.” After fussing over Molly a few moments, Debs carried on. With Molly grasping fistfuls of her hair, she said, “Only, he couldn’t explain what it were like. A tune without a tune, that’s what he said.”
Debs shrugged her eyebrows. “It were really getting to him, his eyes were all wide, like – oww, Molly, don’t pull like that.”
He’s a big lad, is Ted. Stocky body and sturdy mind. He’s not the type to make up maladies. Whispers are he’s Molly’s father. Not that Debs would ever admit to it.
“It’s not a bad noise, Mummy,” Molly squealed.
“You’re a bad noise, you little terror,” Debs growled, attacking the little one with tickles.
Molly always loved going on grown-up errands, so I took her on a trip to the post office as she skipped over cracks in the pavement and hummed away to herself. Usually a chatterbox, she instead occupied herself with her odd sounds.
“What’re you humming, Duckling?” I tried again.
But Molly, she simply stopped and stared up at me, eyes narrowed to thin slits. Then, without saying a word, she carried on. Again, I nearly said something, because I were always taught to respect my elders. Only Molly, she’s had a hard time of it. Sometimes, when there’s whispers about her, it’s like she knows. Silly as it sounds.
Between the houses I could see those faraway trees. Always bare and bony, like fleshless fingers poking up from the dirt. The young folk, they’d meet there for the stuff that young folk do, away from the stern eyes of parents. Debs, she used to sneak out there with Ted, just a few years ago.
And Molly, now and then she glances at the trees. Like she knows.
Silly as it sounds.
“Morning, Vera,” I called as we entered the post office. Vera poked through a ribbon-strip doorway and took her place behind the counter. She wore her usual flower-print housedress. “Any mail?”
And, as always, the middle-aged Vera greeted little Molly instead. Her cheeks bloomed like big round roses as she smiled.
“Good morning, Molly. Have you been a good girl?”
Molly nodded, because she knew what came next: Vera reached over to the sweet shelf and snagged a bright red lollipop. But it didn’t stop Molly’s humming, which continued between each slurp.
“Listen,” Vera half-whispered to me, as though she suddenly remembered me there. “Did you hear about Ted?”
Her gaze unthinkingly turned to Molly. Before I could reply, she carried on.
“There were a police car outside his house, only this morning. Folk say his wife’s reported him…” With another glance at Molly she hissed, “M-I-S-S-I-N-G.”
And even on that sunny day, in the cosy post office with the rosy-cheeked Vera, it all felt cold. A frozen shiver.
The Rose & Crown isn’t a place I’d normally take little Molly. But in 80 years I’d not heard of anyone vanishing from the village. So, after the post office we crossed the car park that’s too big for the pub’s few regulars. Molly skipped over cracks and weeds.
Inside, it all felt different. The regulars were huddled in the corner, whispering conspiracies. They didn’t even notice me and Molly slip by and make our way toward the bar and Debs.
It were like being at a wake, with Debs priest and widow, all in one.
“Y’alright, love?” I asked, while she poured Molly a pineapple juice and stuck a straw in it. She knew I knew, but you can’t just say these things right out.
Deb’s gaze flickered to Ted’s usual barstool, just off to the side.
“You know. Gettin’ by.”
The regulars in the corner had finally noticed Molly. They watched her with beady, bleary eyes, not even trying to hide it. Their faces creased with everything they’d never say.
Molly just hummed and slurped, hummed and slurped.
“Strange times,” I said, because what else could I say? “Strange times.”
Debs nodded and turned ‘round fast to hide her tears. She always cried in silence, like it were wrong to be noisy and sad all at once.
“He’ll show up,” I tried. “Sooner or later. You know how men are.”
The words were worse than none at all. Deb’s shoulders just heaved faster and heavier.
“Don’t be sad, Mummy. He went to the fields.”
Molly chewed at her straw, big blue eyes trained on her mother. Debs sniffed, wiped her face, and turned back to face us.
“Don’t say silly things, Duckling,” I warned.
“But it’s true.”
“That’s enough, Molly,” Debs hissed. Normally a harsh tone from her mum would bring Molly to tears. But she just chewed on her straw. And hummed.
The noise woke me in the small hours, slipping right through my bedroom door. When I threw on my dressing gown and stepped into the hallway, I found it coming from her room. Molly’s room.
“Duckling?”
The lights were off. Molly’s back was to me as she stared out of the dark window. Across the blackened fields, toward that gloomy line of bark and branches. And she still hummed that noise. Like a sound you thought you might have heard. A chime half-caught on the breeze.
Debs started to feel better. She decided that Ted’s marriage must have finally snapped, that he’d taken some time away to gather himself. One or two of the regulars had gone too, probably off seeing relatives somewhere, or on some last-minute trip. It were her job to serve up drinks, Debs said, not to guess at their every move.
The sun came blazing, baking the fields beige. The far-off line of trees shimmered in the heat, like it were nothing more than some dreamy mirage. Molly’s fifth birthday were coming up, and she wanted that new doll, the one with the chubby face in all the catalogues. For a children’s toy it weren’t cheap, but Debs had scrimped and saved and I had a bit left over from my pension. The doll was due any day now.
“Fancy a walk, Duckling? See if the post office has any packages?”
Molly was so excited she grabbed my hand so that we’d go right away. The village looked all cheery as we left the house, the poky terraced houses lustrous in the light. By the time we reached the little brick box marked POST OFFICE, Molly’s nails had dug trenches into my hand.
“Now,” I said, pushing open the door, “don’t be disappointed if there’s nothing here yet, we don’t know…Vera, are you all right?”
Vera’s usually rosy face was shrivelled and grey. For a moment, I could picture her lying in a coffin, shrouded by hushed voices.
She slowly shook her sagging head, left to right.
“My head… I think… the noise…”
Molly held out her hand, waiting for her lollipop. As though only just noticing her, Vera tried her drooping best at a grin, reaching for the jar with shaky hands.
“Vera, let me…”
The jar hit the floor and burst into glittering shards. Molly didn’t even flinch.
“Oh.” Vera’s face crumpled. “I’m sorry, I’m so…”
“Not to mind.” Best I could, I lowered myself to the floor and began picking the pieces into a pile. “You go have a lie down,” I told her. “We can watch things here.”
Vera nodded, as though it was too much effort to even speak, before vanishing through the ribbon-strip doorway.
“You stay back, Duckli–”
But Molly had already fished a bright red lollipop from the floor, absent-mindedly rolling it about her mouth. She took it out only briefly, and only said a few words.
“It’s not a bad noise.”
The noise. Again, I woke to hear the noise, that discordant jumble, and again, I went to Molly’s room. Only this time, she wasn’t there.
Peering from the window, I could see her down in the garden.
“Molly,” I cried, bursting out the back door. “Molly, what’re you doing?”
It were like she couldn’t hear me. She looked out at a scarecrow, off toward the twisting windbreak, the one planted by some ancient farmer.
But there’ve been no scarecrows ’round here, not for a long time. Molly was looking at a person, a figure in a floral housedress. A figure that were moving, getting smaller. And I knew it was her. I just knew.
“Vera! Vera, come back!”
But still that slow, sullen plod through the soil. What else was there to do? “Go inside,” I told Molly, before racing off into the field, skidding in my slippers.
“Vera? Vera!”
Only no matter how hard I called, she wouldn’t look back. No matter how fast I went, I couldn’t catch up. The dry earth cracked beneath my feet, the night cold and cloudless as Vera grew smaller and smaller, until she was just one more shadow along that distant line of trees.
I don’t remember sleeping. But I must have, because the next thing I knew, Molly was shaking me awake from a dream of dark fields and distant trees. I was on the sofa. My slippers were dusty with dry soil.
“Where’s your mum, Duckling?”
Only Molly didn’t answer. Instead, she started up her humming; not the tuneless melody of before, but something high-pitched. Urgent.
I took her out, only I couldn’t see anyone. Even the cars were gone, leaving the street strangely naked. It was like a model town, incomplete, unfinished. Or no, like something being cleared before demolition. Only beginnings and ends are this empty.
The post office was closed. Then we reached the high street, just a few old shops, where you’d go for groceries, or your newspaper, or a slab of meat. But the grocer’s was closed. The newsagent was closed. The butcher’s—closed.
Molly looked at me like I was missing something. Like she was the adult and I the child.
The windows above the shops stared down, lifeless and empty.
Debs. We had to find Debs.
The pub was vacant, or near enough. There were no regulars in the corner, nor along the bar. Just Debs, alone, polishing a pint glass with an old tea towel. As normal as anything. Only, not normal, not normal at all, because she was cleaning the glass too hard, like she wanted to polish it down to nothing.
“Debs?”
I stepped toward her. But Molly, she didn’t come in. She stuck to the doorway, watching it all with her big blue eyes.
“I can’t stand it,” Debs muttered. Then, so loud I flinched, “I can’t stand it!”
The glass hit the floor.
“Make it stop. Make it stop.” She clutched great fistfuls of her hair, hunching in agony.
“Debs,” I whispered, reaching out to her. “Debs, something’s wrong. Let’s go home, call out the doctor…”
Debs shrieked as I took her arm and led her back to the house. She lay down on the couch as I placed a washcloth on her forehead. She writhed like she had a migraine, the noise drilling through her skull, and my heart broke, my daughter in so much pain with no way to stop it. All I could do was take her hand, whisper her name. Molly waited by her mother’s side, the sinking sun setting us all into shadow.
“It’s not a bad noise,” Molly said.
Like she was waking, Debs sat up. She stood, sending the washcloth down to the musty carpet.
“Debs.”
But something had got her attention. She kept her eyes on the doorway, marching toward it like she was off to investigate.
“Debs.”
I followed her into the kitchen and out the back door. Fresh stars broke through the dark sky as I called her name again, frantic.
She was heading for the field.
“No, Debs, no.” I followed her to the soil, reaching out the grab her sleeve, only I missed and when I went to lift my feet…
I was stuck.
“Debs!” I cried as the soil sucked at my shoes.
But Debs didn’t turn around, she just kept walking, and walking. Though it were too dark to see the line of trees, I knew where she was headed. “Debs, Debs, please.” Tears were falling down my cheeks, but she still wouldn’t look, wouldn’t stop, wouldn’t hear anything but the noise in her own head.
I watched her, I did, even though it was too dark, even though I shouldn’t have been able to see as she got smaller and smaller and smaller, my throat so dry I could only let out the softest gasp when she vanished.
There was once a time of bustling villages. Of small towns and local pubs and regulars. There was a time of milkmen, of going to the grocers for your veg and the butchers for a nice slab of meat. It was a time of newspapers, of community, and it wasn’t a perfect time, no, not at all. But it was a time. It happened. It was here, it was all right here.
Now the noise echoes from all around. As I gawp at the distant trees, it swells to a deafening rhythm, brass and trumpets and sirens all rusted together; the shriek of wind and wails of grief; the last song to ever ring through your ears. It’s a cacophony drilling through my skull, piercing every piece of my mind. It’s an obliterating sound.
But I won’t fight. I let it in, heeding its oblivion. What else can I do?
“Come on, Ducking.”
When I take Molly’s hand, I’m no longer trapped by soil. We trudge freely through the fields, on toward the others as we leave the village behind. The noise hurts, oh yes, it hurts like damnation. But if you hum along, it gets a little easier. Molly looks up at me with a giddy, childish grin, her baby teeth glinting in the pale light.
Even though the sound sears through every bone and sinew, it’s easier if I just smile right back. A smile so wide it aches. And I tell myself that it’s not a bad noise. Not really.
It’s not a bad noise at all.
Redfern Jon Barrett is the non-binary author of PROUD PINK SKY and THE GIDDY DEATH. Redfern was 1st runner up for the Leapfrog Prize and has been shortlisted for the Bristol Short Story Award, among others. Their essays, reviews, and stories have appeared in publications including Strange Horizons, Passages North, and Nature. They also have a PhD in Literature, while their concept of ‘ambitopia’ has inspired thinkpieces, artworks, and exhibitions. Their website is redjon.com.
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