A Nest of Nightmares

Footsteps sounded, so close over my head that I winced. Then the door clattered open and Sylvia’s head, the fine hair all tangled rat-tails, swung out and smiled. ‘Hi.’

‘What are you doing up there?’

‘Cleaning.’

‘On Christmas Day?’

‘Sure, why not?’

‘Well, it doesn’t sound like much fun.’

‘I got bored with reading. Anyway, I thought I’d better get it cleaned up before the roofers come.’

‘There’s no rush. We won’t get anyone out to fix the roof until after the holidays.’

‘I know. I just felt like doing it. Okay?’

‘I thought we could take a walk.’

‘Not right now.’

‘It’s lovely out.’

‘Great, you go for a walk. Maybe I’ll be finished when you get back. Have fun.’ Her head swung up out of sight and the door – really nothing more than a flimsy piece of wood – came clattering down to close me out.

Having suggested a walk, I now felt obligated to go for one, but I was not in a good mood as I set out. Sylvia wasn’t being fair, I thought. It was Christmas, after all: a special, family holiday. We should celebrate it by doing something together. Was that really asking too much of Sylvia? I argued it out with her in my imagination as I put on coat, hat, boots, and gloves, and by the time I had reached the road she had apologised and explained that cleaning out the attic was by way of being a present to me.

It was a cold, clear day and the air tasted faintly of apples. Since the ground was not too muddy, I soon left the road and struck off across the fields. I was travelling to the east of the house, up a hill, and the exertion of climbing soon had me feeling warm and vigorous. When I reached the top of the hill I paused to catch my breath and survey the countryside. Our house was easily picked out because it stood away from the village, amid fields and farmland, and my eyes went to it at once. The sight of it made me smile, made me feel proud, as if it were something I had made and not merely bought. There were the yellow stones of my house; there the bright green patch of the untended garden; there the spiky winter trees standing close to the east wall, like guardians.

I squinted and pressed my glasses farther up my nose, closer to my eyes, unable to believe what I saw. There was something large and black in one of the trees; something that reminded me horribly of a man crouching there, spying on the house. Absurd, it couldn’t be – but there was something there, something much bigger than a rook or a cat. Something that did not belong; something dangerous.

I fidgeted uneasily, aware that if I ran down the hill now I would lose sight of it. It might be gone by the time I reached the house, and I might never know what it had been. If only I could see it better, get a better view.

Perhaps it was only a black plastic rubbish bag tossed into the branches by the wind and caught there.

As I thought that, the black thing rose out of the tree – rose flapping – and half-flew, half-floated toward the rooftop. And vanished.

Lost against the dark tiles? Suddenly I wondered about that tarpaulin. How tightly was it fixed? How easily could it be lifted? Could something still get in through the hole in the roof? Something like that horrible, black, flapping thing?

I thought of Sylvia alone in the attic, unsuspecting, unprotected. I moaned, and stumbled down the hill. I kept seeing things I didn’t want to see. Something horrible looming over Sylvia. Sylvia screaming and cowering before something big and black and shapeless; something with big black wings. I would be too late, no matter how fast I ran. Too late. As I ran across the empty winter fields towards the house the tears rolled down my cheeks and I could hardly catch my breath for sobbing.

‘Sylvia!’ I could scarcely get her name out as I burst in the house. I felt as if I had been screaming it forever. ‘Sylvia!’ I staggered up the stairs, catching hold of the flimsy rail and foolishly using it to haul myself upward. ‘Sylvia!’

I could hear nothing but my own ragged breathing, my own voice, my own thundering feet. I stood in her room, too frightened to mount the chair and push open the door. ‘Sylvia!’

Above me, the board clattered and was pulled away, and Sylvia looked out, flushed, angry, concerned. ‘What is it?’

I caught the back of the chair and held it. Finally I managed to whisper, ‘Come down. Now. Please.’

She frowned. ‘All right. But I wish you’d tell me . . .’ Her head drew back and her feet came down, flailed a moment, then found purchase on the chair seat. She let herself down and pulled the door shut after her.

I caught her arm. ‘You’re all right?’

‘Yes, of course I’m all right. You look awful. What’s wrong?’

‘I saw something . . . from the hill . . . I was looking down at the house and I saw it. Something big and black, crouching in the tree where it shouldn’t have been. And then it flew towards the roof. And then I couldn’t see it anymore, and I thought it might have got in, through the hole, you know.’

She regarded me uneasily. ‘What must have got in? What did you see? A bird?’