The circle

The cabin in the woods had been abandoned for years, but one night, a candle burned in the window.

Let’s cut to the chase here. Inside, there was a ghost. A spirit if you will. You know that already. The interesting thing here the what and the why. For this story, I want you to reach out and take my hand. You’re going to want to. I want you to. It’s dark beyond this circle of light. Here we are, like sitting ducks, bobbing in a little ring, while who knows what lurks in the depths beneath us. Which dark whorls are the swishing tail of something bigger and sleeker and faster than water? Which sudden cold creeping currents carry horrors and flailing limbs and gasping lungs and dwindling, dying, drowning light? The darkness behind your back is full of fear, don’t pretend it isn’t. The night is a time of dying and by morning the corpses are devoured. Just because you’re human doesn’t mean you won’t be taken. We are all just flesh and blood. Everyone serves a need here. That prickle in your spine is telling you something. The way your ears can hear so much more right now, that’s your brain, that raw, unevolved part of your brain, just trying to keep you safe. They always say listen to your gut. You know why? Because you know more than you want to, deep down. Keep facing inward, keep facing the light, don’t – no don’t – look behind, into the dark. Your body knows already what eyes might reflect the firelight from out there, in the dark. You’re gut feels already that you’re not so very safe. So let’s close the circle. Take my hand. Feel the press of our fingers against the bones and tendons and muscles of one another’s hands. Keep hold. Let’s go together.

This is the tale of someone like you. Someone you know. I can’t say who, and if you guess, keep it to yourself, I don’t think they would want people to know. What happened – it’s not the kind of thing you would want people to know, if it was you. Let’s walk it through with them. Let’s imagine it was us. Let’s start, I’m sorry to say, in a similar situation to the one we’re in now. But maybe this person hadn’t taken any precautions. Maybe they looked behind when they should have kept facing the light. Maybe they let go, when they should have held on.

Let’s imagine, here we are, sitting in our little tent of light, the shadows lapping at our backs, where our own shadows merge into those other, other shadows. But our faces are bright. I am imaging this is me and you, looking at each other. But I don’t look beyond you. You don’t look beyond me. There’s an intimacy, isn’t there, being the walls to protect each other. We are chatting, quietly. Perhaps you feel a little relaxed, but you know you need to be able to hear, to be ready when it draws near. Not yet. It’s not near yet. I am weary, rubbing my calves as we talk, easing out the fatigue of the day. We are both tired, you too are absently massaging your thigh, feeling the muscle beneath ache a little as it resists your fingers, then the tingle as the blood flows back to the tissues. Maybe there are others with us, maybe there is laughter that rolls forward across the circle, then dies as it breaches the edge. It feels nice. Nice to be here, together, in the light.

The thing about night is, it thickens over time. Nature knows this, sending all bar the boldest back to burrows and high branched roosts, or deep into hedges or protective huddled herds. And we know this too. Instinctively. In the Bible, even God brought light to the formless dark. For six days, God built a circle of light and filled it up with all he could to make himself feel safer, all the living, breathing, simple animals. And the humans, in his image, to hold tight to. But even God could not banish the thick, desolate night, and on the seventh day…who knows? As the night thickens, waves of laughter dim to ripples, chat becomes almost whispered, a low companionable hum thinning to breathy snatches. You can feel it, creeping closer. You know it isn’t long.

I know it isn’t long. I get up, stretch, push the shadows back. Better to avail myself of the facilities now, than find myself awake with a full bladder in another hour. I imagine it was bravado, perhaps, that made them split away from one another. No one admits that everyone knows that horror lurks outside the circle, except children, who don’t understand why it is that we consider it a sane person who fights knowing with reason. Where was I? Yes. I stretch, I utter some explanatory words, speaking out loud now - perhaps they’re more afraid of us than we are of them? And I step out of the circle, and you watch as the colours of my hair, my top, my trousers, fade into monochrome before I vanish into the dark. Maybe you are alone now. Maybe, if there were others, they have nestled into preserving sleep. Maybe you keep looking at the light. But you’ve looked beyond now, and you can’t make a circle with one. Suddenly, it’s much, much colder.

How is your gut now? Is your belly tight? Your shoulders, are they tense? Stay with me now. I don’t think it’s here yet, I don’t think this is the part. This person, I don’t think it’s going to happen to them just now.

Or maybe it is.

Let’s imagine you now sit alone, in a small disc of light. The night has thickened. The noises quieted to isolated cracks and creaks, from behind, ahead, your left. But not your right. Not for a while now. Imagine I’ve been gone a little longer than you expected. Only a little, but lengthening. You’re cold now, you can feel the chill across your back, around the outside of your thighs and calves, like a shawl lowered across your upper arms. On your forearms, the hairs start to stand, your skin puckering around the follicles, and in your chest and stomach you notice a small quiver, a thrumming not-quite-shiver. You wait, still, listening, waiting. Wondering. What do you do? You could lay down, try to sleep? What if I’m hurt out there, what if I need help? Do you stand up before you whisper my name into the dark? Or do you stay hugging your knees as you try to project the whispered word into the dark beyond the light.

Is your jaw tight now? Can you feel your breath high in your chest, feel it across the hairs of your nostrils? Because it’s time to step beyond the edge. Imagine, you stand, pushing out another whisper, though you know it doesn’t even make it out of sight. To your right. As you leave the circle, it folds in on itself, deflating. You are outside, alone.

Walk forwards, into the darkness. Feel with your feet for uneven ground, shifting the weight tentatively, uncertainly. Stop. Listen. What was that? Nothing? Nothing, it was nothing. Another few steps. That? Something? What do you see ahead? Is that a shape or did your eye invent something solid to reach for? But yes, you can feel wood there, an anchor in the dark. Turn around now, where is the light – there, over there, you can see it, a pinprick. Good. Whisper my name again. Wait. Nothing. Shuffle on. Stop. Listen. Which way did you come from? Turn around. Where is the light? WHERE IS THE LIGHT? Turn back, 180 degrees, about turn, shuffle forward, reaching, groping for those anchors. Nothing. Turn again. 10 degrees. Shuffle forward. Nothing. Turn again. 15 degrees. Forward. Nothing. WHERE IS THE LIGHT? Shuffle faster now. One foot down, slide it forward, the next foot down, slide it forward. Arms out shaking just a little, breathe faster too. Step, slide. Nothing. Can you feel your heart behind your rib cage? Can anything else hear your heart behind your ribcage? Whisper my name. Nothing. Nothing.

Something? You walk faster now, what does it matter if you fall? You can see the light, you can surely make it back to the light before it, whatever it is, is upon you. Your body knows it’s near, but we can make it back to the light. You are almost running now, maybe that light is dimmer, than it was. Never mind. You are SO nearly there. And then you fall.

Nothing can harm us while we sleep. While we sleep, monsters stay under the bed, spiders hide in their webs and demons bide their time.

Open your eyes. There is a statue in the church of St Bartholomew, nestled in the lap of the great hospital of the same name in Smithfield, London. Another, 500 years older, in the transept of the cathedral in Milan. Other depictions of Saint Bartholomew abound, his gruesome martyrdom, flayed for converting a King to Christ, a gift to any artist drawn to human form. The apostle stands, the muscles and tendons of his neck, his arms, his chest, stomach, legs, all laid bare in exquisite perfection. The bones of his skull, collar bone and ribcage unclothed, prominent, and over his arm, draped like a discarded cloak, his skin hangs, trailing to the ground. In his hand, he holds the instruments of his flaying. In bronze, there is no blood. The body before you now oozes with it. Striated chords of raw, pink flesh wrap about it, white of bone and cartilage gleaming, while all the while, blood shimmers wetly over all. The light, from a single candle, is amplified by the glass pain behind it, enough to see by, if you know what you’re doing. Glistening, this skinless form bends over you. You struggle, pushing will into your arms, your legs, your vocal chords. Nothing moves. No matter how hard you fight, one arm, one hand, just one thumb….You can move nothing. You scream, hurling your terror into your voice, SOMEONE must come! And not a sound escapes you. You watch the thin tendons and ligaments of the flayed hand shorten, pulling the bones of the fingers and thumb together, refining the grip on the knife, and then you feel it cut the first cut at the sternum, feel the scrape as the flat of the blade slides along the bone, working your skin away, slowly, carefully, damaging nothing, destroying everything.

You do not feel every press of that blade, don’t worry. After a while, still unable to shout or scream, still unable to lift a finger or twitch a toe, you begin to swim in and out of consciousness. In, that gruesome form, the pain, the light of the candle. Out, the merciful void. At last, the job is done. That awful hand shines with your blood now, and it holds aloft the slack, dripping sheath of your skin. Tenderly, it holds it against itself, your skin, pressed against the flesh of that body. You can tell its smiling. You can see every muscle of its face. It turns away, your skin still in its hand, then casually, without looking back, it tosses its old skin onto your supine, stripped body. With horror, you see that it is my skin.

How are you doing? Are you still with me? Relax your jaw. Let’s carry on together, we are almost there. Open your eyes again. You were right. There is a light ahead. My head is sore, my chest, where it hit the ground. But you can see your form sitting again, waiting by the light. As you get closer, you can see again the colour of your skin, burnished warm, the red of you top, the light reflecting in my eyes. We are SO nearly there. And then you are. Back in the circle, taking a deeper breath, glancing back, seeing…nothing. Hold my gaze. Tell me you thought a ghost had got me. Laugh. That was just a joke, right?

Sit down. Imagine again that we are facing one another, close to the light, closer to each other than before. We smile, reassure. It’s going to be alright. Reach out and take my hand. Feel the press of our fingers against the bones and tendons and muscles of one another’s hands. Keep hold. Let’s go together.