The Claw

Fifty-two

Anna closed her eyes, which were smarting with the fog, and clung to the signpost, though the wood oozed like a snail in her hand. The ground squelched under her feet, mud was seeping into her shoes. Fog drifted toward her and away, making her feel as if she were swaying. She wanted to run and never to stop, but she couldn't go on until her heart slowed down. Besides, she wasn't sure what she had just heard.

She couldn't think, she couldn't plan. Her heart felt as if it was thumping her to pieces. Daddy had almost caught her, and then mummy had. When the car with daddy in it – if he was still in it – had started after her, she'd taken to the grass verge, sobbing inside herself and shaking as she'd tried to creep along. She'd been abreast of mummy before she'd seen her; the fog had parted and shown her mummy a few steps away, glaring about, looking for her. Anna had wanted to scream and give up, but she hadn't been able to; her feet on their aching ankles were still moving, smuggling her past in the fog. The fog had closed before mummy had seen her, and she'd stumbled as far as the signpost and was clinging there when she'd heard the sound.

It had something to do with the car. She'd heard a thud, and the car had stopped. Now Granny Knight was crying, 'Oh my God,' over and over. Perhaps the car had gone off the road and crashed into something; perhaps that was what the voices were muttering about now – but Anna couldn't tell whose voices, or even how many. It wouldn't help her if the car had crashed; it would only mean that Granny Knight, who might still be on her side, would be left behind by mummy and daddy while they hunted Anna in the fog.

She heaved herself away from the spongy signpost and began to run. She was weeping as the glare of the fog stung her eyes, weeping with hopelessness. She couldn't head for the village, and it was too far to the hotel. She could only run toward Jane's.

They'd heard her. The muttering stopped, and daddy shouted her name. She ran faster, taking to the verge to make less noise. She could hear daddy running to the signpost, coming after her along the coast road. She could hear the car. It was heading for the village.

So Granny Knight didn't care what happened to her. Mummy and daddy must have said something to her, to make her believe they weren't going to hurt her. Anna had no breath left to scream, and in any case, Granny Knight wouldn't believe her screams. The car dwindled into the fog and then, suddenly, between two painful heartbeats, it was gone. All Anna could hear now were daddy's feet padding quickly after her.

She couldn't hear mummy. She fled along the verge, terrified in case mummy had sneaked ahead of her and was waiting to pounce. Dripping grass-blades slashed at her, fog oozed back along the slimy hedges; underfoot the grass was slippery as polish. Whenever she slipped, she felt as if she were at the edge of the cliff, falling toward the sea she couldn't hear.

Daddy had stopped shouting her name. The fog made it impossible for her to tell whether or not he was catching up with her; his footsteps sounded closer than her own. He'd stopped shouting so that he could hear her better. He was going to catch her. All he had to do was run faster than she was running, along the road.

She dodged, sobbing, off the grass verge, towards the edge of the cliff. She had no idea how close it was. She felt she must be near Jane's by now, but perhaps that was just wishful thinking. The fog dragged over the grass, which looked coated with it; blades nodded, as if the passing of the fog had forced them down. The road had vanished, and the fog seemed to be spinning around her now; there was nothing to hold her sense of direction. She shouldn't have left the road, because now she couldn't hear daddy any more – or anyone else who might be coming for her. Was someone watching her, just at the edge of her eye? When she turned there was nothing but a fading glimpse of red.

She stumbled through the unkempt grass, and felt as if her feet were sinking into the soggy ground; mustn't quicksand feel like this? She wasn't running so much as putting her feet forward to stop herself from falling. She hardly knew where she was, or what she was doing. When she finally reached a landmark she knew, she was almost in it before she remembered what it meant.

It was the blackberry thick: t. That meant she wasn't far from Jane's, though she wasn't as near as she'd been praying. She could follow the path through the mounds to the field next to Jane's house. The blackberries would hide her. She limped between the first of the dark thorny mounds.

At once she wished she hadn't. The mounds and the fog made her feel closed in, unable to get out of the small dark grubby place that was growing darker and grubbier. As each mound swelled up out of the fog she thought that it was lying in wait for her, and then that something behind it was. She would have turned back, except that her sense of being followed was even stronger. That made her run wildly, flinching as each new mound loomed up, but now the blackberries were trying to catch her too, thorny tendrils fastening on her clothes. When they caught her they felt like claws, like mummy's or daddy's fingernails tearing at her flesh. Once, when she swung round to disentangle herself, there were no thorns at all, only a blur of red in the closing fog. The red must be berries – the tendrils must have let go and sprung back, but she had no time to be sure, she was too busy running and sobbing.

By the time she realized she'd strayed from the path between the mounds, she didn't dare turn back. Now she wondered if that flash of red really had been berries after all. She was struggling along a side path and praying it would take her out of the mounds, crawling as thorns closed overhead. When thorns clawed her shoulders, she felt as if someone had leaned down to scratch her, like a cat playing with a mouse. The blurred shapes that loomed over her seemed red more and more often now, but she couldn't raise her head to see.

She wormed her way between two mounds, sobbing because there was nothing left of her except the urge to sob. Sand squeezed under her nails, sand rubbed her sides; it felt like salt in a wound. What was it that kept looming over her and at her back besides the thorns? She struggled among the blackberry roots, so wildly that she dislodged part of one mound, uprooting part of the tangle overhead. The net of thorns was falling on her, it would hold her until daddy and mummy came with their nails that were worse than thorns. But she heaved herself out from between the roots with an effort that left her back a mass of scratches, and suddenly she was out of the thicket.

She plunged into the tall grass at once. She must be facing Jane's house. Now that she was in the grass she couldn't stop to think or get her bearings; the sound of the grass, loud as a flock of birds, drove her onward – and so did a growing notion that she wasn't alone in making the grass rustle. If something was running after her or with her, she'd never see it until it got to her; leaving aside the fog, the grass was almost as tall as she was. She longed to stop for a moment, for she was deafened by the grass, but the thought of slowing down even a fraction terrified her. She was almost blind with running when part of the fog loomed up, grew paler, more solid, turned into a white wall. But it wasn't Jane's cottage, it was the windmill.

She would have hidden in there if she had been able to open the door, but not only was it locked, the hinges as long as her arm were rusted solid. She huddled against the door, clammy flakes of old paint clinging to her smarting back, and tried to think which way she must be facing. You could just see this door from Jane's cottage when it wasn't foggy, if you leaned out of a window and looked to the left; that meant that the cottage must be to her right now, or was it to her left? If you looked in a mirror and raised your left hand your reflection raised its right hand, which was really your left – but how did that help? Her sobs were growing louder, she didn't care how loud. Then she pressed her hand against her mouth, because she felt that someone was just beyond the edge of the fog, invisible yet watching her. Was it only her own snuffling she could hear?

She fled into the fog again, heading left, but then she paused. Was that the direction she should follow? She veered to the right in case that was the way and because she had a vague idea of dodging whatever was out there in the fog. Suppose she couldn't get into the cottage? Baby Georgia was dead, and Jane had gone away; she wouldn't be able to get in unless Georgie's daddy Derek was there. Surely he would be – it was where he lived.

A patch of fog on her left stood too still for fog, and turned into stone, white stone; the windmill. She ought to have gone right after all, she was running in circles in the fog. She was limping away, her throat too clogged with fog even to sob, when she glimpsed a corner of the stone as it sank back into the grey. The windmill had no corners. As she peered at it, afraid to go closer in case it was another false hope, she made out the edge of the garden, the unkempt hedgeless garden that merged with the held. She'd found the house after all.

Now that she was so close, she could hardly move for fear that she wouldn't be able to get in. Jane had always left the back door unlocked so that anyone who came visiting could walk straight into her kitchen, but Jane had gone away. If she couldn't get in, where would she go? She'd have to run into the fog, on and on until she fell, until mummy and daddy came for her.

They were somewhere in the fog, their long cruel nails were. Perhaps they were very near. She limped toward the cottage, which came nodding at her as if it weren't much more solid than the fog. The ground oozed, soaking her feet; fog closed on the sides of the house, walling her in with the door. She had almost reached the door; she was lifting her hand to knock, although it was shaking with fear that nobody would be in, when she stopped and stared. Unless the fog was playing tricks, the door was ajar.

Had Jane come home? Anna hoped it was Jane: she didn't know Derek so well – she didn't know if she could tell him why she was running away. The fog surged toward her, an imaginary attacker which perhaps hid a real one. She could hear nothing but her own gulping breaths, couldn't hear where mummy and daddy were, how close they were to catching her. The door was open a crack, the fog hadn't deceived her. Someone was in the cottage, that was all that mattered. She stepped forward and pushed open the kitchen door.