Iggy speaks first. ‘Who-who are you? What do you want? P-please don’t hurt me.’
The person-creature steps forward, and we creep backwards till we’re right at the end of the jetty and there’s nowhere else for us to go except into the water again. Even Suzy has backed away, after shaking as much water as she could from her feathers.
The creature leans forward till its head is only about a metre away. It takes a deep sniff then makes the same grunting and whining noise with its mouth and nose as before. That is immediately followed by: ‘You are alreatty hurt.’
The thing has a voice that is a strange combination of throaty and high-pitched. It pronounces the ‘r’ in words like are and hurt like Scottish Sheila in the village, and each word is precise, as though the language has been recently learned. It holds out a thin, hairy finger and points at Iggy’s bleeding leg.
Iggy can’t speak for fear.
‘To you want me to help?’ comes the voice again, after another brief snuffling and squeaking.
I can smell its breath: it’s like a dog’s – sort of sour and a bit fishy. Now and then it licks its lips with a long grey tongue.
Help? I’m not so sure. I’m thinking that I could scramble to my feet, and push this thing into the water, then run up the path for the bikes … Only Iggy is in no shape to run. I’d be leaving him here at the mercy of this … thing. He wouldn’t do that to me, I don’t think.
Iggy nods.
We both flinch when the creature raises both of its hands and brings forward a bag that was hooked on to its back, like a little backpack.
Racing through my head is this: This is what happened to Tammy. This thing is going to take us. It’s not a monster: it’s a person. It’s a weirdo dressed up in an outfit, and he’s going to bring out a knife or a gun or …
I stare closely. If this is a costume, where are the joins? Is there a zip somewhere? That’s a fake nose, surely? I’ve seen shows on TV where make-up artists create things like that. Prosthetic something or other. But why would anyone wander around Kielder Water in the dark like that unless they had bad intentions? Halloween maybe, but that was nearly two months ago.
Then, from the backpack, the creature brings out a stick: thickish, like a broom handle, smooth, dark, and about 30 centimetres long. It holds it in its fist and studies it for a moment while we tremble with cold and total fear. I feel Iggy’s hand grip mine and I grip back. If I’m going to die, I don’t want to go alone.
‘This may work, it may not,’ says the person-in-a-costume (I am convinced by now). ‘Your cellular structure iss almost itentical. Put your leck out.’
Iggy shrinks back and draws his leg in.
‘This will not hurt.’ The creature pauses. ‘Do it!’
Slowly, like a turtle coming out of its shell, Iggy extends his bloody leg. He’s whimpering with fear.
The throaty snuffle comes again, followed by the word ‘Light!’
It’s looking at me.
I reach for the torch. In addition to the long, open gash in Iggy’s leg, there is the hook still deeply embedded in his flesh. The blood is pouring out and on to the jetty.
The creature advances further, the rod in its hands, and moves it over the wounds. Then, as we watch, the blood seems to dry, and scab over. The huge fish hook with the lure attached is pushed out by the hardening flesh and falls on to the decking of the jetty. The scabs turn browner, then black, all in the space of about thirty seconds. The creature replaces the stick in its backpack; then, with a long finger, gently flicks at the scabs, which drop off, revealing fresh, pink skin underneath.
It stands up straight and I look at its feet. They are bare and hairy and definitely not fake ones slipped over shoes. He – she? – is smallish, but not tiny: not as tall as me. It isn’t hunched over and creepy like Gollum in The Lord of the Rings – not at all. And, though it is stark naked, it doesn’t seem at all embarrassed by the fact.
Without taking his eyes off the creature, Iggy says to me, ‘It’s a girl.’
‘How do you know?’
Iggy tuts. ‘Look, Tait. No, erm … boy’s bits.’
I hadn’t noticed, but he’s right. I feel oddly embarrassed, staring at it – her – like that. I feel myself blushing.
When she stands up, the still, cold air gives a waft of her smell. Blocked drains? Sour milk? Earwax? It’s all of those things blended together to make a rich, foul odour that is not just her breath: it is her.
‘Jeez, Iggy. She flippin’ stinks!’ I whisper.
Iggy has taken his cap off and is holding it to his nose.
‘Thought it was you at first,’ he says, his voice muffled.
Slowly, Iggy and I get to our feet and the three of us stand there in a little triangle, saying nothing – just, you know, being utterly astonished. Iggy flexes his newly cured leg.
Eventually, he jams his cap back on and pats his chest twice. ‘Me, Iggy,’ he says, and the creature blinks hard.
I could swear she’s thinking, Why is he talking like a halfwit?
All the same, taking my cue from Iggy, I point at myself and say, ‘Me, Ethan.’
I can’t precisely say how I know this, because it’s not like she gasps or blinks or anything, but I can tell she’s surprised. ‘Ee-fan?’ she says.
‘Yes.’
She lifts her chin then lowers it. The action is sort of like a nod, but done backwards. Then she says something that sounds like ‘Helly-ann’ and pats her own chest.
Iggy looks across at me, a triumphant smirk on his face. ‘See? That’s her name. Hellyann!’
But then we hear the shouts, and the dogs, and see the flashlights through the trees in the distance, coming down the path from the main road.
The look of pure terror that crosses the creature’s strange, furry face changes everything, I think.
‘Say nothing,’ she says in her squeaky snuffle.
‘What?’ says Iggy.
‘I say: say nothing. Say you haf not seen me. Lie. You people are good at that.’
‘Wait,’ I say. ‘Who are you? And why should we lie?’
The dog noise is getting nearer, and a huge German Shepherd bursts out of the undergrowth, bounding along the pebble beach towards us.
I hear: ‘What is it, Sheba? What have you found?’
And the creature who says her name is Hellyann fixes me with her intense, pale gaze.
‘Because if you don’t, you’ll neffer see your sister again.’
My sister. Tammy.
Iggy was right. His fishing trip idea worked: for the past hour or so I had hardly thought about her.
But now, on a freezing evening as I stand dripping on to the wooden deck, it all comes flooding back into my head in a wave of sorrow as I remember why I am here.