Page 10 of Summer in Sunset Harbour
She walked a little way down the path to what had once been the campsite’s parking area. Weeds came up to her knees, and a tree had fallen across the road on the way in, so long ago that saplings had been to grow up around it, creating a natural screen of vegetation.
She walked a little further. The trees opened out a little and she found herself facing a padlocked barn, partly reclaimed by the forest, with one tree growing in through a side window and out through a hole in the roof. She had no key for the padlock, but as she peered through a gap in the boards of the door, she saw the outline of what looked like ping pong and pool tables, plus an indoor children’s play area.
There was more here than she had thought, it seemed. Walking a little further, she came across a couple of overgrown buildings, one which might have been a shop, another that looked like a camping rental place. And then a little further on, she found some kind of tower, a tall cone so choked in weeds and vines that the only indication it was man-made came from a few silver glints through the upper vine leaves. Taller than a two-storey house, she wondered if it was some kind of lookout tower.
Thinking about cutting her way in later, she headed on. The trees began to thin out, and she caught glimpses of a grassy clearing up ahead. Here, the sea sounded close. She pushed her way through, thinking she was close to the beach.
Voices drifted through the trees, making Josie halt in her tracks. No, not voices, chanting. Voices rose and fell, feeding off each other, some baritone, others falsetto, creating an awkward discordance that made Josie wince.
Only a couple of trees separated her from the clearing. She looked down at her feet and realised she was walking on a well-trodden path. One more step and she broke through the tree line just as the grass in front of her seemed to move.
Josie let out a gasp of fright as the vegetation lifted up and turned, revealing the faces of four people wearing bizarre costumes made out of woven grass, leaves and tree branches. She started to back away but found a tree at her back.
‘Don’t hurt me!’ she cried, even as the group let out a howl that lay somewhere between fear and threat, as though it had been years since they had been faced with such a situation and were unsure how to react. Then, backed up against the cliff edge, they looked around at each other. Beards waved, long, unkempt hair swayed in the wind, and clothing Josie now realised was comprised of ancient rags repaired by whatever they could find in the forest, rustled. Then, with a low ‘coo’ that indicated a decision, they turned and rushed at Josie as one.
She stumbled backwards, trying to get away, but as she twisted, she caught her foot on a rock protruding out of the soil and fell flat on her face, scratching her cheek on a thorny bush and catching her forehead with a glancing blow against a sapling’s trunk that had just enough flexibility not to knock her out.
By the time she had recovered herself, the group had vanished. As she sat up, leaning back against the base of the tree, she looked around, wondering what was going on. Perhaps she had been knocked out, as the ground had disappeared, and as she peered back into the gloom below the trees, she couldn’t catch any sight of them. Rubbing her head as she looked across the clearing, she recognised the rotted remains of a picnic bench standing close to the cliff edge, so she climbed stiffly to her feet, brushed herself down, and went to take a look.
The bench was still intact, but the seats had rotted away. In their place, four metal-framed deckchairs had been arranged in a semi-circle, frames rusty, canvas seats sun-faded and frayed, repaired with twigs and baler twine. Beyond the bench, the ground dropped away, a steep grassy slope with a well-trodden path meandering back and forth. Halfway down to a crescent-shaped beach it intersected with another path following the line of the cliff. This had to be the southwest coast path, for it looked well-used. Where the path down from the clearing intersected it, there was a barbed wire fence and a wooden sign she couldn’t read from this distance. Beyond it, the downward path continued, meandering down to the shore.
She had never been much of a beach person, not liking the feel of sand on her toes or the saltiness of seawater in her hair. As she stared at the little beach, however, she felt a sudden sense of longing. On the right, a steep, curving jut of rock wrapped around it like a protective arm. Cragged and treacherous, the coast path rose up out of the valley then dropped over the headland’s shoulder, not attempting to make it out to the narrow end. Another clearing stood there, distant benches the size of doll’s house toys facing out to the sea. To her left, the cove was a little more open, the cliff a fat lump of shale rock with a stand of gnarled, misshapen trees on top. Together, the two cliffs held the tiny cove like a child in its parents’ arms, safe and protected. Small breakers lapped at a semi-circle of grey sand backed by a foreshore of lumpy slate rocks. In the water, three small rock stacks jutted out, one just offshore, two others at diagonals to the right and left, a little larger, a little further out.
As Josie stared, letting her eyes relax and her vision blur, she couldn’t help but think it looked like the smiling face of a man, the rocks the eyes and nose, the headlands large ears or even sideburns, the grey beach a smile. As a small wave broke over the shore, the whitewater resembled a bushy moustache.
Josie leant back against the bench, smiling to herself, the sun high overhead warming her skin. While it would never stand up against some paradisical tropical island, it was a rugged little gem of a place, and while she still didn’t have any confidence in herself, the view at least was enough to draw her out of her problems for a few moments.
Something rustled against her ankle, tickling the strip of skin above her shoes. She reached down and picked it up.
An empty wrapper, the design on the side reading Suncrust Pasties.
Josie frowned. She turned back to the trees, wondering where the strange people had gone, then to her horror realised they were still there, watching her.
Not on the ground, however, but high up in the branches of the trees, peering out from among the leaves, like a group of squirrels waiting for the fox to leave so that their foraging could resume.
As she stared at them, her neck prickling at the thought that they had been watching her during a moment she had thought she was alone, a sudden sound rose out of the trees, something that at first sounded like a strange animal cry, before Josie realised was the name of a man chanted over and over again:
‘Mike! Mike, Mike! Mike, Mike,Mike!’
7
Robinson
Hilda liftedher teacup to her lips and took a little sip. Josie, with a strong black coffee, stared past her friend, through the café window at the sweeping view of Porth Melynos in the valley below. On another day she might have marvelled at the quaint harbour with its narrow streets of pretty stonewalled houses, but now all she could think about was the terror she had felt back at the campsite after finding the people living in the trees.
‘I can’t go back there,’ she said, hands shaking as she tried to grip her coffee. ‘It was like … some kind of horror film. I could see their treehouses in there, like all rope bridges and balconies, like that Ewok village inStar Wars.’
‘The Return of the Jedi, dear,’ Hilda said. ‘The Ewoks didn’t appear until the third film.’
‘I don’t care. It was terrifying. I saw four of them. I can’t go back there, not knowing they’re so close. Like, their clothes were all make of sticks.’
‘Perhaps we could have a word with Nat, see what he says.’
‘I need to go back and get my stuff, then I’m leaving.’
A look of horror passed across Hilda’s face, and she reached across the table to pat Josie’s hand. ‘Please, don’t be so hasty. You have to give it time.’
‘They could murder me in my bed!’
