On Beulah Height. Reginald Hill

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СКАЧАТЬ friend he had were a bat that hung upside down high in the roof of his cave, though often when it spoke to him its little squeaky voice seemed to come from somewhere high in the roof of his own head.

      If nix wanted to go out, he usually waited till night. But sometimes he’d hear voices of kiddies playing in village far below and he’d sneak out in the daytime and find a shady place in the hillside where he could watch them.

      Best of all were when they played in the pond on the village green and splashed each other, and ran around shouting, their shining faces and white limbs all dripping with water.

      The one he liked watching most were called Nina. Her hair was as blonde as his was black and her skin as smooth as his was scaly.

      Came a summer when sun shone so warm and sky stayed so cloudless that not even thought of seeing Nina could ’tice nix out into that heat and that brightness. He sat tight in his dark dank cave waiting for weather to change. But it didn’t change and after a week or so he noticed when he knelt to take a drink that the water in his pool were further away than it used to be.

      Day followed dry day. Sun burnt so hot, nix could feel its stuffy heat even down here in his cave. And without a drop of rain to slip through the cracks in the hillside and fill up his pool, the level got lower and lower. Soon the creatures that lived in it, and them as lived in the muddy edge which was getting bigger and bigger and drier and drier, began to die. And soon the nix began to feel very hungry.

      ‘You going to sit there moping till you fade away?’ said bat.

      ‘Don’t see what else I can do,’ said nix.

      ‘You can find some food,’ said bat.

      ‘I’ve looked and I’ve looked and there’s nowt left to feed me,’ said nix.

      ‘I weren’t thinking of feeding thee,’ said bat. ‘I were thinking of feeding the pool.’

      ‘Eh?’ said nix.

      ‘Have you not noticed? Yon pond in the village hasn’t got much smaller. And you know why that is?’

      ‘No,’ said nix.

      ‘It’s because of them juicy young lasses always splashing about in it,’ said bat. ‘Get yourself one of them, and you’d soon see pool filling up again.’

      So nix went up to the surface to take a look for himself. It were so bright and hot he could only stay up there for half a minute, but it were long enough to see that bat was right. The village pond were still full of water, and the little kids were still splashing around in it.

      Back down he came to his cave and he said, ‘So you’re right, but it’s not much help. How am I going to get one of them to come down here? They’re all shut up in their homes at night, and if I go out during the day, I’ll shrivel up and die.’

      ‘Then she’ll have to come to you,’ said bat. ‘Go out tonight and gather all the prettiest flowers you can find, and plant them all around the entrance to the cave. Then just sit and wait.’

      So that night the nix stole out and went far and wide over hill and dale, uprooting all the flowers he could find, moon daisies and stepmothers, Aaron’s rod and bedstraw, but no flopdocken, for that’s a flower nixes and their kind cannot abide. And he planted them all around the mouth of his cave.

      Next morning, Nina went for a walk up the hill afore the sun got too hot. She wanted to pick some flowers for her mam, but there weren’t very many because the heat had dried up all the ground and baked it so hard that even the grass was brown. Then suddenly she spotted this hollow in the hillside so full of flowers it looked like a garden. She made haste to get there and started picking the brightest blooms when a voice said, ‘What do you think you’re up to, little girl? Do you always steal flowers from other folks’s gardens?’

      ‘Oh, I’m so sorry,’ cried Nina. ‘I didn’t realize this was anybody’s garden.’

      ‘Well, you realize now,’ said the voice.

      She couldn’t see who was speaking but the voice seemed to be coming out of this hole in the hillside. So she went to it and said timidly, ‘I really am sorry. I’ll put them down here, shall I?’

      ‘Nay, now they’re picked, you might as well keep them,’ said the voice.

      ‘That’s right kind of you,’ said Nina. ‘But won’t you come out into your garden where I can see you?’

      ‘Nay, lass. I can’t bear this heat,’ said the voice. ‘In fact, I were just making myself a jug of iced lemonade. Would you like to try a glass?’

      Now Nina was very hot and thirsty indeed and she said eagerly, ‘Yes please.’

      ‘Right, I’ll pour you one. Just step inside and help yourself.’

      So she pushed past the flowers which fringed the entrance to the tunnel leading down to the cave and stepped inside.

      Next moment she felt herself seized by her long blonde hair which she was wearing in two pigtails and before she could scream she was dragged right down into the bowels of the earth.

      There she lay in the foul-smelling dark, sobbing her heart out.

      Finally she ran out of tears and rubbed her eyes and sat up to take a look around.

      Outside, sun were so bright, a little bit of light filtered down the entrance tunnel. By its dim glow she saw she were in a cave. The ground were strewn with rocks and stuff. In the middle of the cave was a small, foul-smelling pool, and on its edge sat this thing.

      Its body was long and scaly, its fingers and toes were webbed with long curved nails, its face was gaunt and hollow, its nose hooked, its chin pointed and fringed with sharp spikes of beard, its eyes deep-set and staring, and its mouth twisted in a mockery of a smile showing sharp white teeth as it spoke.

      ‘How do, Nina,’ it said.

      ‘How do, Nix,’ she answered in a very low voice.

      ‘You know who I am then?’ said nix.

      ‘Aye. My mam’s told me about you,’ said Nina.

      What her mam had told her was never go up the fell on her lone else the wicked nix that lived beneath it might steal her.

      Now she wished with all her might that she’d taken heed!

      ‘Then it’s nice of you to come visiting, Nina,’ said nix.

      ‘It’s nice of you to have me,’ said Nina politely like she’d been taught. ‘But please, I’d like to go home now, it’s nearly time for my dinner.’

      ‘It’s long past time for mine,’ snapped nix. Then, smiling his terrible smile again, he went on, ‘Tell you what, Nina. It’s so hot, why don’t you have a little swim afore you go?’

      Nina looked at the dreadful pool and shook her head.

      ‘No, thank you,’ she said. ‘My dad says I’m never to go swimming by myself, only when there’s someone bigger around to take care of me.’

      ‘Never СКАЧАТЬ