THE CAULD LAD By Nicki Benson A short piece inspired by an old Wearside legend. The word 'cauld' (meaning 'cold') should be pronounced 'card'.

A chill, unrelenting greyness leaks through the foliage overhead, denuding the dene of colour and definition. The autumnal golds and yellows strewn across the narrow path fade, together with the memories of sunshine they once stored. On the lower slopes, where the trees thin to isolated clumps of ash and beech, the bramble bushes look withered and spent, the morose remnants of their summer strength shown only by the thorns that protrude in angry defiance of this annual decay. At the bottom of the valley, recent rain has swollen the tiny burn that bubbles through the reeds; the water flows into a wide pond, overhung with branches and covered in fallen leaves, then disappears into the culvert that takes it beneath the busy roads and industrial estates crowded around this anachronistic scrap of ancient woodland.

It’s a sad place, one I am always drawn to on this day of the year. I’ve almost given up hope of discovering why.

After a little while, a middle-aged woman walking two exciteable mongrels approaches from the darkening avenue to the west. She attempts to hide her suspicion, but I recognise the hostility in the glance she throws me all too well. She’s seen guys like me before, and she has no high opinion of my motives for loitering here.

I take my revenge with calculated malevolence. Very slowly, I remove my tinted spectacles. The dogs freeze in fear. They whine and whimper. They are staring into an abyss from which there is no scrambling back, the bleak, limitless void of non-existence.

I lift the spell, allowing their owner to hurry past. A frisson of regret clouds my thoughts at the ease with which I manipulated those innocent creatures. It has gone by the time I turn from my last look at the water, drowned by the presence I sense lurking beneath its scummy surface.

Splashing. Screaming. Choking.

I fight down the irrational panic that floods through my mind. I must leave, despite the pull these gloomy surroundings exert upon me.

Before the weeds bind my wrists and the silt settles on my terror-filled features.

The path leads me to a wrought-iron gate, and from there along a suburban lane to a miniature park and the restored keep of a medieval castle. Beside the entrance stands a play area where a group of mothers watch their older children swing and slide while they rock their little ones in their buggies. Their distrust echoes that of the woman in the dene; they huddle closer, speaking in low voices as though the words might erect a wall of protection against the dishevelled figure shambling by.

I ignore them, my eyes focused on a plot of ground to the right of the keep. For a moment I imagine the sound of horses snorting in a frost-covered courtyard.

Four hundred years ago…

A steady drizzle begins to fall. As I make my way through the comfortless thoroughfares of a post-war housing estate I can already feel the change coming on. I have a few seconds to wonder why I never reach the end of this journey, and another few to reflect that my curse is also my blessing.

“Until this time next year,” I say to Robert Skelton under my breath.

I’m waiting at a bus shelter, hands stuffed inside the pockets of a coat that’s far too big for me. Twenty yards or so down the road there’s a pub called The Cauld Lad. The name jogs something in my memory, but not for long. Tonight is Halloween, and I haven’t even decided on black or blood-red nails.

Image by Jim Lanyon

Music: 'Phantasmagoria', performed by Curved Air
http://youtu.be/gV7vgoI0eJk