The Faun

I would like to remind you all that Britain is ancient; she has lived many lives, each one a thick-rooted history that tangles its way back through the land and deep into the soil. While we may have forgotten many of these histories, leaving them behind in the darkest, coldest corners of our shores, there are places that have not forgotten – will never forget – the oldest of stories and the most frightening of legends, even if the details themselves elude them. Why, for example, do the children of Wheaton-Barlow sing of the Eight Below? Who taught them the song? Why do they all steer clear of the woods? And what about Jenny Greenteeth, whose origins are murkier than the depths she supposedly inhabits? Nobody recalls the first uttering of her name, but they can recount their parents threatening a visit from Jenny and her hands that grasp from the water’s edge.

These places – these ancient, hallowed places – that stand as monuments to a different time – a time which we will never truly know – are dotted all about Britain. They’re the small towns you pass over for a rest stop, the cold in your bones tightening fingers around the steering wheel so as to keep you moving forward on the road; they’re the follies and ruins and lumps and bumps that give the distant landscape their jagged edges, none of which you dare to visit, all of which you spare a little thought to; and they’re the quiet villages like Dawelcoed, so far out of reach of the city that people forget its name or that it even exists.

And yet, when somebody repeats it with the firm authority of a man who has never left this village – a village whose soils is soaked in the blood, sweat, tears, and memory of his entire family tree, its roots grasping onto tradition – you believe it exists. Especially when there’s custom to be had there, deliveries to be made, money to be had.

And so, squinting unbelievingly at the tiny dot representing the village of Dawelcoed on a map, Gus and Nate took to the road.

In the back of their van – a falsehood in itself, the freshly sprayed exterior glossing over the rust and compromising MOT history – a hog roast. In the front of the van, a young man and his boss, both tired from the pub the night before, neither wondering if it was safe to drive.

For the sake of fifteen hundred pounds, it was worth leaving Cardiff early, packing the meat into the back of the van while the sky was still pale and the roads were empty. The journey would take them less than an hour, but the customer’s itinerary had been a strict one: the ceremony would be finished by eleven, the feast would begin at twelve, the pair could depart at one. Factoring in their own schedule, the pair had barely slept to ensure they were on the road in time.

As they ventured deeper into the valleys, the forests thickened, the hills either side of them lurched ever taller, and the sense that something was amiss settled into both their stomachs. Gus – the younger of the two – would say it was because the initial burst of energy between them had fizzled out somewhere around Abertillery. Nate, on the other hand, might have admitted he had a hangover, but wouldn’t confess to the uneasy doubt tugging on his earlobe. This has all been a prank, the voice said. He drowned it out with the sound of the accelerator.

Eventually, the hills calmed and receded, and they reached a stretch of road that cut directly through the vast land beneath the sky. Trees – skinnier and yet more numerous in number so as to create the impression of a tightly packed arboreal army guarding the approach – clustered along one side of the road, while wheat was swayed with the air’s invisible gesture on the opposing side. Gus wanted to say he didn’t know there were farms this far out but didn’t. He’d never been this far north of the city, and he could see the bloodying of Nate’s eyes and the paling of his skin by the hangover; one word might break his concentration – or his patience.

Instead, they stayed silent until Gus pointed at the turning and Nate grunted. They found the venue with little difficulty – a village green opposite a pub that reminded Gus of an old coin. It was worn, the bricks dirtied and harassed, and yet it was hard to tell if that was a modern feature or simply because of the pub’s age; much like a coin, it spun in the air, two faces flicking between two places in time. Gus rubbed his temples and swore off tequila, lest his mates ever caught him thinking about masonry with such fervour.

Gus got to work unloading the machine and the table, their knives and the charcoal, while Nate spoke to the father of the bride. He recognised the voice easily, but more so he seemed to know the face first – perhaps because it looked as the man had sounded; stern, weathered, neatly parted hair atop a deeply lined visage. The voice was no easier to understand in person.

“You can set up over there,” he said, pointing to a spot near the marquee, which strained under the weight of yet another wedding. How many had it seen between the villagers? “And here’s your payment. I’m trusting you with this now,” the bride’s father said, tapping the envelope against Nate’s chest.

Nate took it from him, relieved to feel the weight of cash and not the disappointment of a cheque and thanked the man with a weary smile.

“No need to hang around when you’re done,” was the reply, the man’s hands meeting behind his back as he surveyed Nate’s condition.

Much of the morning passed without interest, the pair of them listening out for any sign of celebration. The only sound that would indicate anything was happening came from the church, whose proud bell rang out both before and after the ceremony.

Despite its small, crooked form and the antiquated treasures within – bell included – the church was fairly young in comparison to its surroundings. Yes, it had stood for hundreds of years, but it stood on land that had held a personality – had sustained life and nurtured culture – for far longer; it was junior in comparison. A new belief to stave off the old ones.

As the ceremony concluded, the guests milled around the beer garden’s benches - drinks and cigarettes in hand. As is always the case at such events, a lone guest drifted in Gus’ direction as he began to carve the succulent pig. Nate had snuck off for a pint and a piss to ease the aching sickness in his stomach, leaving the young man to attend to both hog and human.

“That smells amazing,” the guest said. Gus couldn’t tell how old she was, nor was he particularly bothered, the hog’s hot juices catching him off-guard as they splashed his bare skin. He didn’t yelp (even though he wanted to), but gratefully took the cloth handed to him by the guest. She was a pretty thing, closer to Nate’s age but she had fared much better here, away from the city air.

They spoke, Gus feeling obliged to do so by the gesture with the cloth and were it anywhere else – his local or TigerTiger or even Spoons down the bay – he would’ve leaned in close, pint in hand, and slurred sweet nothings into her ear to lure her to the gents or a dark corner or even his. He wasn’t anywhere else though, he was at work, and so he maintained his composure even as his mind wondered to her hips.

Nate interrupted, storming into the conversation as he wiped his wet hands on his trousers. He was in a better mood, the curdled hangover softened into temporary drunkenness.

“Did you hear that? There’s no fucking DJ,” he laughed, unaware of the guest. “Who has a wedding without a DJ? I says to him ‘You’re not even having a band, mate?’ and he goes ‘No, it’s disrespectful’. Can you believe it, like?”

Gus and the guest had both ceased their conversation and stood awkwardly, Nate’s presence a cool salve against their rising heat.

“I look forward to trying your hog,” the woman said to Gus as she turned to leave, though she paused and added, “But really: don’t play any music, will you? It’s not worth it.”

She didn’t wait for an answer, perhaps already convinced that the pair would be doomed one way or another. They would be passing strangers who never returned to Dawelcoed, and their fates were their own – she could do little to change them with her words.

The guests feasted, licking the juices from their fingers and sucking the grease from their lips, and Nate wasted no time in packing up. They were sent away with the rest of the hog, and a tip from the father of the bride, which Nate snatched from his fingers with the rampant excitement of an alcoholic with a ticket to his next drink.

In the van, Gus attempted to temper the unsettled feeling in his gut by swapping comments about the guests and the strangeness of the wedding. Still, the worry was painted across his face in such pale, bright colours that Nate had to ask, “What’s the matter with you, then?”

The older man directed the steering wheel with one hand, while the other fed him the last bites of pork hastily stuffed into some spare rolls he had in the back.

“What was all that about not playing any music?” he asked. “I don’t get it.”

“I don’t know, butt. Things get a bit weird up here. Folks all alone in the middle of fucking nowhere. It’ll be some local legend or some shite.”

“But…”

“But what? We’re done now. We got paid and we got a fat tip – I say let’s get down the pub while the weather’s still good and spend a hard day’s earnings. What d’you say?”

“But Nate…”

Nate tore off a chunk of meat and bread and chewed viciously, his temper flaring at his temples.

“What? What is it? Come on, then, fucking spit it out.”

“There was music. I’ve been hearing it all day.”

Nate started to laugh, his cheeks full of chewed food and mirth, both of which slid down to his throat and caught there. The laugh turned to a choke, the straight-forward road became a curve, and the pair veered off, down a small dip, and into a tree.

By the time Gus woke, the airbag’s cushioning had left an impression on his face. The light had drawn in, summer’s embrace turning sinister as the darkest, richest sunset he had ever seen burned the sky in orange and black.

The young man swung the passenger door open and stumbled from the van, clutching his side and reaching out for a tree to support him. There was a hiss coming from the van, a slow and pained sound as the vehicle’s life slowly leaked from it.

That was all he could hear, however. Despite the thick trees beyond his grasp and the road behind him, there were no other sounds; no cars, no birdsong, no chirps or whistles or grunts or snarls.

No, that was wrong. There was something else. A song he had heard with such growing clarity all day that it had become background noise to him; he could tune in and out of each note or ignore it all together, but still it would be there.

The music was eerily familiar if only by the nature of the instrument. Someone, somewhere, was pursing their lips together and blowing melancholy mourning through the hollowed out wood of a pan pipe.

As he clambered to the road, Gus peered up at the sky behind the wheat field opposing him; each grain was a black silhouette against the burning horizon. Then the rising curl of some other shape began to ascend from the field, some way away and yet so close to him. He watched intently as the curl ended in a sharp point. The creature to which they belonged to – a ram, he supposed – turned its head in his direction to show Gus both horns. A messy tuft of hair sat between them.

There, in the vast open landscape, the music grew ever louder and yet grew ever more intimate. The ram – whose features he couldn’t yet make out – seemed to stare at him. And then, it began to grow taller and taller, until Gus realised he could make out the shoulders of a man, arms bent to hold something close to the creature’s face.

It was the source of the music. It was the promise of an eternity of wildness and fraternity, of dancing and paganism, of ancient dawns and liberated passion. And it was waiting for him in the field. He stepped forward, not mechanically but with fluid motion, drawn in by the music. It was only as he reached half-way across the road – as the last tip of the sunset screamed out to him before it was extinguished – that he saw the menacing, twisted visage of an angry human, joyously bobbing as hoofs jigged playfully against the soil. The strangeness – the unfamiliarity – set Gus apart from himself long enough to stop his march towards the Faun and its maddening promises, freezing in the middle of the road. The Faun paused between notes so as to watch as the young man was struck down by a car sliding from the inky night in a hurry to race the sunset.

The Faun waited and retreated; the driver panicked and drove on; and Gus remained on the road, hoping to hear music one last time – or at the very least to be reassured that he would not be forgotten.