Through Old Nelly’s Eyes

Tess craned her neck over the edge of the rocks.

‘Aren’t you scared?,’ her best friend Kitty asked as Tess geared up to jump into the watering hole far below.

‘Course I am,’ she said, smiling. ‘But I just can’t resist!’ She launched herself into the air, squealing as she bombed into the dark pool.

‘Is it cold?,’ Kitty called, laying on her stomach and peering over the ledge.

‘Freezing!’, shouted Tess through chattering teeth. ‘But it’s the run-off water from Big Red. What do you expect?.’

The two girls spent the afternoon lazing in the shade of the pine trees, until the sun dipped behind the red rocks of the mountain range that surrounded their town on all sides.

‘Do you think we’ll always live in Redvale, Tess?,’ asked Kitty, as they rolled up their towels.

‘Guess so,’ said Tess. ‘Leaving here would mean climbing over Big Red, and no-one’s ever done that.’

Kitty eyed the towering mountain. ‘Suppose you’re right,’ she said.

‘Kitty,’ Tess said, pulling her friend to standing with an effortless gesture, ‘it’s always been drummed into us how perfect Redvale is. So why would you want to leave?’

Kitty shrugged and bit her bottom lip. ‘Cos of Old Nelly,’ she whispered, her eyes darting around.

Tess gave her friend a shove. ‘Dare you to shout her name!,’ she said.

‘No way,’ said Kitty. ‘It’ll echo around Big Red and she’ll come for us.’

‘You’re chicken,’ said Tess, slipping her feet into her pumps. ‘Race you back to town.’ She set off at a sprint, shouting ‘Old Nelly,’ over and over at the top of her voice. Kitty was right, it did echo around the mountain, and when they pushed through a thicket and back onto the track behind their houses, there she was, Old Nelly, as if she’d been waiting for them.

Tess skidded to a stop and put a protective arm in front of her friend.

Despite her minuscule frame and advanced age, the sight of Old Nelly had even the boldest of children running in the opposite direction. Apart from Tess.

Old Nelly stood stock-still, leaning on her cane. Her blood-shot eyes, magnified by her thick glasses, were fixed towards the girls.

‘Is she looking at us?,’ whispered Kitty.

‘Think so,’ said Tess, turning to her friend. Poor Kitty. Her face was pure white and her whole body was shaking.

‘When I say run, we run,’ said Tess, holding Kitty’s hand, ready to drag her if she had to. It was then that Old Nelly lunged towards them, cane raised, her other skinny arm flailing in front of her.

‘Get away, go on, get away!,’ she screamed, in a voice so piercing Tess had to cover her ears.

‘Quickly’, Tess shouted, ‘towards my house!’

For a woman in her eighties, Old Nelly was remarkably fast. The girls only just made it to Tess’s door, slamming it shut behind them, before Old Nelly stumbled up the path and began hammering on it with her stick.

Only when they were halfway up the staircase did they turn around, panting. When Old Nelly pushed open the letterbox to look inside, her eyes darting left to right, Kitty screamed and Tess burst out laughing, ‘They’ve gone, they’ve gone!,’ Old Nelly squealed. The letterbox clacked shut.

Later that evening, Tess recounted the story to her mother through mouthfuls of ice-cream.

‘And she raced after us, mum, wailing like a mad thing, then she almost kicked the door down!’

Tess’s mother smiled to herself as she wiped the traces of chocolate from around her daughter’s mouth.

‘Stop it, mum,’ Tess squirmed. ‘I’m fourteen next month, I can wash my own face.’

‘I know,’ said her mum, ‘but you’ll be leaving for work then, so I’m making the most of it.’

Tess put her head in her hands.

‘But I don’t want to work on the communal farm. It looks boring, and Kitty’s brother said the beds are lumpy.’

‘Well how would we all get fed otherwise?,’ said her mum. ‘Besides, we’ve all had to do it.’

Tess looked her mother directly in the eyes. ‘I’m doing Forest Patrol when I’m older, not farming,’ she said.

‘Over my dead body, Tessima Jackson,’ said her mum firmly, folding her arms and narrowing her eyes. Tess looked away. Even she knew when it was best to let something lie.

‘Has anyone ever left Redvale, mum?,’ she asked, changing the subject.

‘Only those that have been taken,’ her mother said, picking up a hairbrush and dragging it through Tess’s reluctant hair, ‘by the mountain spirits.’

Tess sniggered. ‘You don’t believe that do you mum?’, she said. ‘The town committee just says that to keep us here, I bet. But one day, I swear I’m going to climb Big Red and have a look what’s out there. I’m not afraid of spirits or anything else.’

Her mother slammed down the brush.

‘Sometimes fear is a good thing, Tess. Besides, there’s no way over the mountain.’

‘So we’re trapped,’ said Tess.

‘Protected,’ said her mother. ‘And as long as we stay away from Big Red and don’t provoke the spirits, we can live in peace.’

‘Well I’m still going to play in the forest,’ said Tess, huffing.

‘Fine,’ said her mother, ‘just not too close to the mountain.’

She sat down close to her daughter.

‘You know, Tess, your uncle was just like you, always teasing Old Nelly and thinking he was so brave. And look what happened to him.’

In fact no-one really knew what had happened. Tess’s Uncle Tim had just disappeared one day. One minute he was dawdling behind his friends as they were walking home from playing in the forest, and the next minute he was gone. Everyone suspected Old Nelly had given him to the mountain spirits because Tim had teased her relentlessly. And yet his disappearance had her wailing inconsolably for a week. In Tess’s opinion, her Uncle Tim had climbed Big Red and started a new life beyond. But she daren’t say that to her mum.

‘Promise you’ll steer clear of Old Nelly?’, said her mum.

‘Promise,’ said Tess, her fingers crossed under the table.

It was only a few days before Tess was due to go to the farm. She and Kitty were sitting in the wooden cabin on the communal green, watching the autumn leaves falling from the trees they had spent the summer picnicking under.

‘I’m going to miss you, Tess,’ said Kitty, fiddling with the buttons on her cardigan.

Tess kicked the dirt floor with the front of her trainers. She knew it would be a year before they saw each other again.

‘I’ll sneak out of the farm at night and meet you in the woods!’ said Tess.

‘But I’m too scared to go into the woods when it’s dark,’ said Kitty, her eyes filling with tears.

‘Then we need to make you braver,’ said Tess, nodding towards the other side of the green. ‘Starting now.’

Kitty gasped when she spotted the hunched figure of Old Nelly.

‘Dare you to go and say hello,’ said Tess.

Kitty stood up straight and took a deep breath.

‘Ok,’ she said, a note of firmness in her usually soft voice.

‘Gosh Kitty, I didn’t mean…’

But Kitty was already striding across the green. She looked back, just once, at her friend. Tess put her thumb up in encouragement. There hadn’t been a day since that she hadn’t regretted that gesture. Seconds later, Kitty took a sharp turn into the path of Old Nelly.

The old lady stopped, her eyes roving over Kitty as Kitty stepped ever closer to her. And then it started, the squealing, the waving of arms, so violent that Old Nelly’s thick glasses slipped from her face, landing at Kitty’s feet.

Old Nelly was silent for a second, Kitty frozen like a statue, and Tess was so afraid the old lady was building up to another eruption that she sprinted across the green, shouting to Kitty to step away. In a flash, she picked up the glasses, intending to give them back to their owner and run home with her friend.

But something stopped her. Old Nelly was still focused on Kitty, her eyes flitting to the glasses every few seconds. She was wheezing now, the effort of her earlier outburst taking its toll on her frail body.

‘Give!,’ she hissed at Tess, holding out a bony hand.

But Tess kept a firm hold on the glasses.

‘Run, Kitty,’ she said between gritted teeth, ‘while her attention is on me.’

‘But Tess, I can’t move,’ said Kitty, sobbing. ‘Something’s got hold of my arms. It hurts.’

Tess glanced over at Kitty. The fear etched on her friend’s face caused an unfamiliar wave of panic to come over Tess, but she swallowed it quickly and spoke in her calmest voice.

‘There’s nothing there, Kitty,’ she said. ‘You’re just frightened.’

Kitty frowned and started walking backwards in stumbling, awkward steps.

‘It’s pulling me, Tess. Help me!’ She was crying hysterically now, as some unforeseen force dragged her towards the forest. It was then that Tess saw the flesh on Kitty’s arms moving, and her t-shirt tightening as something invisible tugged at it.

‘The glasses,’ shrieked Old Nelly. ‘Give them to me!’

But Tess didn’t. Instead, with shaking hands, she put them on. It took a few seconds for her eyes to adjust, but then the diabolical scene unfolded before her with perfect clarity. Three dark figures had hold of Kitty. They had a memory of a human form, but their stretched heads had no features and their bodies were a tangle of obscenely long limbs and fingers that moved like snakes. Tess rubbed her eyes, wondering at first if she was trapped in some kind of nightmare, but then she instinctively lurched forward, trying to find something of Kitty to grab onto. But Kitty’s body was completely entangled among the figures now, their black tendrils enveloping her as they dragged her away, slowly at first, then picking up speed, until in a flash they were all gone. From somewhere deep within the forest came a scream. Then silence, apart from a gentle pitter-patter of raindrops that washed away Tess’s stubborn tears.

Tess gave the glasses back to Old Nelly, then sank to her knees. The disturbance had attracted the attention of most of the village, including Tess’s mum, who came running towards her daughter.

‘Where’s Kitty?,’ she asked, hauling Tess to her feet and shaking her by the shoulders.

‘Gone. Like Uncle Tim,’ whispered Tess, suddenly cold. ‘And it was my fault.’

The familiar wails of Old Nelly filled the air now, though they no longer sounded to Tess like the twisted cries of a person driven mad with age, but instead like the inconsolable cries of a woman bereaved.

On the day of her one hundredth birthday, Old Nelly disappeared into the forest and was never seen again. Tess had got up early that day, awoken by the sound of the trees behind her tiny cabin whispering in the spring breeze. She took a swig of cold nettle tea and pulled on her clothes. She figured she may as well start her rounds now. The rota pinned on the front door told her which section of the forest she would be checking. Not that she needed reminding. She knew the woods like she knew every line on her tanned face. Twenty years she’d been in Forest Patrol now, all the while hoping to find some sign of Kitty. But nothing.

As Tess wrestled her feet into her leather boots, she spotted the crooked figure of Old Nelly across the road, her hooded eyes staring straight at her. Tess turned away, every encounter with the old woman a reminder of what she’d lost. She walked behind her cabin and jumped over the wooden barrier that barred access to the forest, put up in haste after Kitty’s disappearance. The forest no longer rang with the sound of children playing hide and seek in the winter and heading to the plunge pools to escape the incessant heat of the summer. Entry was now forbidden, except to members of Forest Patrol. Despite this, there were always various groups to weed out—curious kids playing games of dare, defiant teenagers, or older members of the village for whom the woods held memories of happier times.

Not today though. The woods had never been so quiet, as if the trees had been bullied into silence by the ominous blood-red mountain that hemmed it in. After a few hours, Tess plonked herself down against an age-old tree to eat and rest, hoping the silence would allow her to catch up on some of the sleep she had missed out on that morning. But it wasn’t to be. The faint sound of cracking twigs had her sitting up, her lunch discarded by her side. She held her breath, then let it out slowly as the familiar figure of Old Nelly passed through the clearing, heading towards the track that led deeper into the forest.

‘I can see you, Old Nelly,’ Tess called to her.

Old Nelly stopped and turned towards Tess. She looked even older and more weary than some of the most gnarled trees in the forest. But Tess supposed that years of warding off the mountain spirits would have that effect on a person.

‘You’re next, Tessima Jackson,’ Old Nelly said in a hoarse whisper, before continuing on her way.

‘Sure I am,’ said Tess, smiling. ‘And hey Nelly, don’t go too far. There’s a storm coming.’ And with that she leaned back against the tree and fell asleep.

It was almost dark when Tess was jolted awake by a clap of thunder. She scrabbled her senses together, fumbling in her backpack for her torch. But she felt something unfamiliar. Something she’d held in her hands once before, twenty years ago. Old Nelly’s glasses.

A bolt of lightening had Tess jumping to her feet just as an ominous breeze blew through the trees. She instinctively put the glasses on. They made everything brighter somehow, and infinitely more detailed. Clumps of grass became individual blades, dense foliage a delicate web of separate leaves. It was then that spotted Old Nelly’s staff, leaning against the tree she’d been dozing under. She grabbed it, and used it to push aside the brambles that lined the path she had decided to take to get out of there. With the help of Nelly’s glasses and cane, Tess passed quickly through the forest, accompanied by a howling gale.

The storm looked to be blowing itself out now as she emerged from the forest, though a heavy rain persisted. Old Nelly’s glasses kept sliding down her nose, so Tess shoved them in her pocket. She spotted a few straggly kids populating the communal green. Storms like this tended to draw them out, and they’d sit in huddles in the wooden cabin to witness the light show that danced around Big Red. She waved at them with Old Nelly’s stick to get their attention.

‘Don’t dare go in that forest, you lot!,’ she shouted to them. ‘Go home.’

One of the older boys stood up and folded his arms. Jeremy. A cocky boy of about thirteen. His mum had done her stint on the communal farm the same year Tess had.

‘We go in the woods all the time,’ Jeremy said, a smirk on his face. ‘Don’t know what all the fuss is about.’

His friends were silent, exchanging awkward glances. It was rare for younger people to challenge older ones.

‘It’s the rules, and that’s that,’ said Tess, approaching him and waving her cane. ‘And if I catch you in there, any of you, I’ll make sure you get two years on the farm instead of one.’

No-one spoke. Not even Jeremy. Instead they were all fixated on a rustling noise coming from the edge of the forest.

‘Spirits,’ said Jeremy, turning to his friends. Some of them forced a laugh, though others were getting up, shuffling out of the cabin with their hoods up. The threat of an extended stay on the farm frightened them more than rumours of mountain spirits ever would.

‘Come on, guys,’ said Jeremy, his cheeks flushing a little at the sight of his dispersing audience. ‘You’re not scared of…’ But his words were cut short and he whipped round, his eyes on fire.

‘Stop prodding me, will you?,’ he said to the girl closest to him.

‘I’m not!,’ she said, showing him her hands.

There was something about the look on Jeremy’s face that put Tess on high alert, her hands instinctively going to the glasses in her pocket. He was bewildered, fearful, like Kitty had been. And, just like before, the glasses revealed a crowd of dark figures gathered around the children. Several of them were poking at Jeremy with their tentacle-like arms.

Tess knew there wasn’t a moment to lose. She rushed towards the pack and waved Old Nelly’s cane furiously. The black figures turned in unison towards her, but Tess felt no fear. She poked at them one by one.

‘Get away!,’ she screeched at the top of her voice, over and over again, until the black creatures recoiled towards the forest and disappeared into the night. The children, even the biggest of them frightened by Tess’s bizarre display, scattered to their respective homes.

‘You’re mad, Old Tess!,’ shouted Jeremy once he was safely out of her reach.

Tess stood on the edge of the green for a few minutes, her breath heaving, rain streaming down her face, Old Nelly’s final words echoing around her head. ‘You’re next, Tessima Jackson.’ But she was too tired to dwell on it just now. In fact, she’d never felt so exhausted in her life, her body barely able to hold itself up. So she pushed her glasses up her nose, hunched over her cane, and hobbled back to her cabin.