The Holly Man

Spencer groaned as the dratted crying came from the kitchen downstairs. The postman had trudged through the snow that morning and given the news he – and the little brat downstairs – had been dreading.

Due to the blitz, Holly could not go home to London for Christmas. Nor could her mother afford the train to come and stay. Holly was going to stay for Christmas.

Life had been good for Spencer before the war started. He was an only child and his parents were rich, so they had bought him everything he ever wanted. Toys, games, sweets, you name it. He had been happy in their country home next to the copse. But then Mr Hitler had started dropping bombs on the big cities, and SHE had arrived.

Spencer disliked Holly. Firstly, she was a girl. And she had to share his room. Girls shouldn’t be allowed in boys’ rooms by law, or so he had argued unsuccessfully to his parents.

Secondly, she was such a cry-baby!

Holly had never been anywhere but London before she arrived on the evacuees’ train.

She was homesick and missed her mother very much. She was used to sooty streets, not animals and open fields.

So, Holly spent a lot of time crying. She cried in bed, she cried at school and she even cried in church during the important bits where you need to be quiet.

Why couldn’t she go back to London and be with the mother she wanted so much?

Why couldn’t she leave him alone and stop playing with his toys and waking him up at night? If only he could stop the wretched crying.

Then, an idea came to Spencer. It was a cruel idea, but it is the unfortunate nature of children to be cruel. Particularly selfish and uncaring children. ~~~ Later that day, after a fairly dull day of reading about the French Revolution, Spencer led Holly somewhat grudgingly by the hand back home in the dusk. The house was at the end of a winding path that went through a copse. Gnarled trees stood sentry over it, their branches naked of leaves and twigs waving like skeletal fingers.

Holly clutched Spencer’s gloved hand as he led her off the path towards a thicket of holly trees.

There were blood red berries hanging among prickly bottle-green leaves, and the knobbly trunks were oddly twisted. Holly trembled as Spencer pointed to a particularly knotted trunk. Where the dim light caught them, marks in the bark looked like distorted human mouths.

‘This is where the Holly Man lives.’

‘Who?’ Holly sniffed, trying to back away.

‘He’s the ghost of an old man with bark for skin and a twisted face’, Spencer said, purposefully gripping Holly so she couldn’t get away.

‘He creaks as he walks, his twig fingers grasping at the air trying to catch noisy children.’

‘S-stop it!’ Holly stammered, trying to pull her hand free.

‘He sleeps in the ground most of the year,’ Spencer carried on, a cruel smirk on his face.

‘But in winter he comes out looking for food.

He likes children best. Especially little girls who won’t stop crying.

‘See these marks in the trees? That’s where he puts the faces of the children he catches. He comes creak-creakcreaking up the stairs… ready to gobble up –’

Holly’s glove hung limply in Spencer’s hand as her scream rang out.

Spencer turned just in time to see Holly go running down the hill and away from the house, bawling at the top of her lungs.

‘Go back to London!’ Spencer shouted after her as he threw the glove on the ground.

‘Maybe he won’t find you there!’ and he stalked triumphantly back to the house.

It was midnight. Spencer lay in bed greedily chewing. His parents were still out with the police looking for Holly, so he’d stolen Holly’s sweet ration. Well, she wouldn’t be needing it.

He had his room back. He had his toys back. He –

He froze as a sound came from downstairs. It sounded like the creak of a door. Probably mother. He went back to chewing.

Creeeeak.

It was closer this time. It sounded like it was at the foot of the stairs. ‘Probably a loose floorboard’, he thought. Creeeeak… creeeak… A chill that had nothing to do with cold ran up Spencer’s spine. His mouth had gone very dry. ‘M-mother?’

Creeeeak… creeeeeak… creeeeeak…

Spencer dived under the blankets, his heart pounding in his chest.

He heard the door open…what sounded like thin, hard fingers clinking on the handle. Clunk. The slow, shuffling footfalls of gigantic feet. To Spencer, they sounded like wood dragging against wood. Clunk. Clunk. He heard rustling. It was if branches were being dragged along the walls and floor. Clunk. Clunk. Clunk. A deep, rasping groan. The sound of a dry throat as shadows of impossibly long fingers fell across his blankets.

Spencer shrank lower in the sheets, trying to make himself as flat as possible.

The paper of the stolen toffee crunched under his elbow.

Skeletal twig-like fingers ripped the blankets away.

Moonlight glinted on leaves sharp as broken glass and blood-red berries.

Spencer screamed as the twisted face bore down on him.

It was a scream that nobody heard. ~~~ They found Holly next morning curled up under a bench at the train station. She wouldn’t speak a word, so the police decided she had probably tried to stowaway back to London.

Spencer wasn’t there when the police brought Holly home. His mother and father couldn’t find him anywhere.

Holly was put to bed as soon as she’d been given some food and a hot bath.

It was only when they left her to go search for Spencer that she noticed her missing glove under her bed… along with some holly berries.

It was several days later still that she walked through the copse to get to school.

When she passed the holly thicket, she could have sworn she could see another face in the bark…