Beowulf's Ghost Read online

  First published in Great Britain in 2022 by

  The Book Guild Ltd

  Unit E2 Airfield Business Park,

  Harrison Road, Market Harborough,

  Leicestershire. LE16 7UL

  Tel: 0116 2792299

  www.bookguild.co.uk

  Email: [email protected]

  Twitter: @bookguild

  Copyright © 2022 R. J. Madon

  The right of R. J. Madon to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Design and Patents Act 1988.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, transmitted, or stored in a retrieval system, in any form or by any means, without permission in writing from the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in whivch it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  This work is entirely fictitious and bears no resemblance to any persons living or dead.

  ISBN 978 1915352 545

  British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data.

  A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  For Laura

  Then, under the cliffs, Beowulf stood, holding his shield and wearing his armour. His anger was great and his voice came warlike-loud to echo his challenge beneath the hoary stone…

  Beowulf

  Contents

  Prologue

  Part 1 Grendel

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Part 2 Grendel’s Mother

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Part 3 Beowulf

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgements

  Prologue

  The old man walked slowly, but with deliberate purpose, between the shelves of books in the library. Half-moon glasses, perched on the end of a large nose, looked too far from his beady eyes to offer any real help in reading. Looking up to the higher shelves, he placed a thoughtful hand on his chin, searched for something, then tutted and shook his head. ‘Not quite right, not quite right.’ He carried on wandering around the labyrinth of books, occasionally picking a volume from a shelf, examining it, then returning it with another tut.

  Then his eyes caught the title embossed on the cracked spine of a particularly dusty book. Easing it from the shelf, he turned it over in his hands and smiled. ‘Yes, this will do just fine…’

  Part 1

  Grendel

  Chapter 1

  Leave me alone!

  Adam looked out of the window at the garden below and the leafless trees and shrubs. A heavy frost covered the grass, marked only by the track of Juno, who had evidently trotted out a few steps, melted the frost with a yellow patch and bounded straight back in.

  Now why would I do that? Voice paused then added, This is much more fun!

  Not today. Not today. Just leave me alone. Adam walked with purpose across his bedroom, hoping that if he moved quick enough he would leave Voice by the window.

  You know I can’t do that, Voice said. Today is precisely when I need to keep you company. Besides, we have a party to go to.

  Adam clenched his fists, fighting the ache rising in his chest. He knew today was coming, he just had to figure out a way of surviving it.

  You’re crying!

  ‘Shut up!’ Adam shouted, hands pressed against his temples.

  Steps shuffled outside in the corridor. There was a gentle knock on the door. ‘Adam, are you okay?’

  Catching his breath, Adam waited for the thumping in his chest to subside. ‘Yes, Dad. I’m good.’

  ‘Come on, son, we’re waiting for you.’ The sentence trailed away as footsteps padded down the stairs.

  Adam walked into the living room and managed a quick scan before letting his gaze drop to the floor. Juno lay in front of the fire burning in the hearth, head resting on paws, eyes looking to left and right. His mother sat on the edge of the sofa, back straight, hair towered neatly, hands clasped in front of her. She looked like she was waiting for an interview. His father busied himself placing cards and presents on the coffee table, arranging and rearranging them several times.

  ‘We can leave the presents here for now,’ he said. ‘Just for today. Then we can put them in Ellie’s room. What do you think?’ He looked at his wife. She forced a smile that froze in place.

  ‘Dad,’ Adam said, finding it impossible to look either of them in the eye. ‘Do we have to do this?’

  ‘Of course!’ His father rearranged the cards again and stood up. ‘Ah! I almost forgot,’ he said, walking into the kitchen.

  Juno lifted his head up, ears raised in anticipation.

  The silence in the room was unbearable. Adam shifted from one leg to the other, aware his mother hadn’t moved a muscle.

  The light in the room clicked off and his father walked slowly in holding a cake with a cluster of flickering candles. ‘Happy birthday…’

  ‘No!’ Adam shouted. ‘What are you doing!’ He couldn’t bear being in the room any longer and tried to push past his father. The cake fell onto the floor and in an instant Juno bounded across and gulped down lumps of cake and candles.

  ‘Look what you’ve done!’ His father pushed Juno out of the way, scraping what was left of the cake back onto the plate. ‘Can’t you make an effort, just once?’ His mother sat immobile as if nothing had happened, half-smile intact.

  Adam bolted out of the room and grabbed his coat. He slammed the front door and jumped onto his bike, propped up by the garage, pedalling for all he was worth.

  Run away, Voice whispered. It’s what you’re good at.

  Adam shook Voice from his head and cycled out of the estate and along a lane bordering a playing field. Seagulls flew overhead and the wash of the sea sounded in the distance. He passed the huge basalt cliff towering above him, crowned with the imposing bulk of Bamburgh Castle, the massive volcanic core standing like a sentinel on the edge of the coast. He gritted his teeth and pedalled harder, breath misting in the cold February morning. Once clear of the outskirts of the town, he left the road and headed inland down a drover’s track.

  Today was Ellie’s twelfth birthday, or it should have been. Adam had found the cards in a drawer yesterday. There was one from each of them, all written by his dad. There was even one from Juno signed with a badly drawn paw-print. It had made him angry at first, seeing the cards, wishing they could just leave it alone. Even though they kept telling him that they understood, that it wasn’t his fault, he knew deep down they still blamed him. After an hour of hard cycling Adam finally stopped, muscles aching, the frustration and anger worked out of him.

  His heart sank.

  He was so intent on getting away he realised he must have cycled across the old bridge over the river and ended up at
Wooler Tarn, the one place in the world he didn’t want to be right now. At the end of the track, rutted with patches of frost, stood the low wide cliffs chiselled into the Cheviot mountain. They formed a horseshoe around a lake surrounded on each side by wind-blasted trees.

  He dropped his bike to the ground and blew warmth into his numb hands. He looked at the trailing edge of the sheer cliff nearest to him and traced the line he’d taken a year ago. It had been a challenge; none of the other kids in the village had ever managed it. He remembered the view from the top, looking down onto the tarn and seeing the picnic things laid out, and the panic rising inside when he saw Ellie floating in the middle of the lake…

  That was a day you won’t forget in a hurry. Too busy trying to prove something to yourself. All you had to do was look after her and—

  Can’t you ever shut up! Just get out! Adam walked over to the edge of the tarn where the water lapped against the grass.

  How does it make you feel coming back? Voice said.

  ‘Enough!’ Adam shouted out loud, wiping away the tears from his eyes. He clamped his jaw shut, trying hard to swallow against the lump in his throat. Pulling his jacket closer, he shoved cold hands into his pockets and looked at the water. The north wind scuffed waves in broken patterns across the tarn.

  Being this close to the water made him shake. Despite the cold, he felt the sweat breaking out on his face. His chest thumped, he turned to go, but just then he saw what he thought was a reflection in the water. Fighting back his fear, he edged closer until the water lapped against his shoes. He peered into the water, shimmering in the breeze. But then the wind dropped and the water calmed.

  A face appeared under the surface, half-hidden by fronds of duckweed. It moved closer, the blonde hair waving in the current, tied in bunches with the red ribbons that had been a birthday present. The mouth opened and he heard Ellie speak.

  ‘Help me!’

  Adam shrieked and fell backwards onto the grass, tearing up clods of earth, kicking away from the tarn.

  ‘There isn’t much time.’

  Adam picked himself up and ran faster than he’d ever run before, slipping on the icy grass and careering down the hill. The nightmare vision burned deep into his mind, Ellie looking exactly the same as the day she’d drowned.

  Coward, was the only word Voice said to him, then fell silent.

  Ellie spoke to me, Adam thought as he raced over the marsh and bog. But how? Why? His heart thumped wildly until he thought his chest would burst. Eventually he stopped, bending double and resting hands on his knees. He sucked in great gulps of air and cursed; he’d left his bike at the tarn, but there was no way he was going back for it.

  It was only then he realised he didn’t know exactly where he was. He knew the paths and tracks around the foothills of the Cheviots like the back of his hand. He walked along a track that dropped down the side of a gully, lined with leafless trees.

  You know her body was never found, don’t you? Voice chided. What a cold and lonely way to die…

  Adam didn’t reply. Sometimes if he stayed quiet Voice would grow tired and stop talking. Shivering in the dank air, he trudged down the track. Voice’s last comment stayed in his head, eating away deep inside him… What a cold and lonely way to die… He sniffed and wiped his nose with the back of his hand. He went to move but couldn’t take another step. Screwing his face up, the tears ran down his cheeks. He gulped in air but it almost choked him. He thought of his mum and dad at home and Juno lying by the fire. A feeling of complete desolation filled him. She spoke to me, he thought, but what am I supposed to do?

  A trick of the light, a movement of water, a pang of guilt, Voice added.

  Blinking back the tears, he looked again at the woods, attempting to orientate himself. He was about to turn back and retrace his steps when he heard a mumbling.

  Peering through the branches, he saw an old man shambling through the trees. A hood was pulled over his head and he steadied himself with a tall staff. ‘My, my, come here, you tricky one,’ the man said to himself as he bent over to pick up a stick which he pushed into a bundle held under his other arm. He stumbled, and as he braced the staff against the grass, the bundle of sticks tumbled to the ground. The man tutted and stiffly began to pick up each stick.

  Adam could see it was an impossible task; the man couldn’t hold the staff and the sticks under his arm at the same time. He looked up the path and the way home, then back to the old man gathering firewood. Cold raindrops splashed his face. Through the trees dark clouds skidded across the sky. The weather had turned; a storm was coming.

  Adam sighed and trudged on. ‘Hello,’ he called, ‘do you want some help?’

  The old man twisted his body round and stared at Adam. ‘My dear boy, that would be most welcome!’

  Adam walked over and grabbed the bunch of sticks in his arms. ‘Are you taking these far?’

  ‘Not at all. I just live over there.’ The old man pointed with his staff to where the trees thinned out.

  In front of Adam was a strange sight he hadn’t noticed before. An old mansion house sat in the middle of the clearing, wreathed in mist. Some of the trees had grown close to the foundations, their branches touching the high walls. Adam frowned; there was no stately home anywhere near where he’d been heading. He looked around for the familiar hump of the Cheviot, but the treeline was too high to see through. ‘Where are we?’ he said. He took his phone out, but there was no signal.

  The old man walked on, using his staff to navigate through to the clearing. ‘Why, we are here, of course,’ he said with a smile. ‘Not anywhere else, just here.’ The wind picked up, sending a curtain of rain across the sky.

  The house looked derelict. Many of the windows were broken and ivy snaked up the crumbling walls, wrapping around the stone balustrade running along the roof. It almost looked as if the house had grown up from the ground, along with the forest.

  ‘In here, before we get wet!’ The man shambled up the front steps and past the heavy front door hanging off its hinges. Adam followed into the hallway; a tiled floor was covered in dirt and rubble and at the far end a staircase curved upwards to disappear above the cracked ceiling. A musty smell sat heavy in the air as if the house had lain empty for years.

  Adam shivered and hugged the bundle of sticks closer. He entered what looked like a sitting room where tall shutters barricaded the windows; some of the wooden slats had fallen away to let weak light spill onto the dusty floor.

  The old man opened an oak-panelled door on the far side of the room. Adam blinked in the soft yellow glow coming from old-fashioned lights hanging from the ceiling. His skin prickled as a wave of heat from the room made him realise how cold he was.

  Shelves stacked with books reached from floor to ceiling. The old man stepped aside and, with a twinkle in his eye, announced, ‘Welcome to my library!’

  Chapter 2

  Shaking the rain from his coat, the old man hung it on a hook by the door and placed his staff against the wall. ‘Come in, come in, don’t wait on ceremony!’ He peered at Adam over half-moon glasses that perched on a huge nose that was more like the beak of a large bird. His eyes were a faded light blue but twinkled with a mischievous light. Thick grey hair sprouted from his head in all directions, in contrast to his neat goatee beard. He wore a three-piece suit of faded brown corduroy with a purple silk cravat around his neck, matched with a handkerchief in the top pocket of the jacket.

  ‘Where do you want the wood?’ Adam asked, looking into the library that was much larger than he first thought, shelves branching and disappearing into the distance.

  ‘Ah yes, the wood,’ the man answered, almost as if he had forgotten about it. ‘This way, follow me,’ he said, setting off into the library.

  Adam followed, hugging the sticks close. ‘I know this area pretty well, I never knew there was an old house here.’

  ‘
My dear boy, this house has always been here.’ The man touched the side of his vast nose with a finger and lowered his voice as if confiding in some great conspiracy. ‘You just need to know where to look. It’s a bit big just for me. I’ve let some of it go, but I’m the librarian for the collection and for my sins I look after all of it.’ He looked wistfully around the shelves then hurried away deeper into the library.

  The shelves opened out into a room that was so vast it was more like a public library. The walls were filled floor to ceiling with row upon row of books. The air was thick with the smell of old things. Adam followed the librarian, weaving through the labyrinth of shelves and stacks of books. Some looked new, but many of them looked ancient, with dry, cracked leather bindings, their titles long since faded.

  Rounding a shelf containing rolls of parchment tied up with ribbon, they walked into the heart of the library. The bookshelves opened out onto an area filled with leather chairs and a couple of long sofas. Ornate wooden tables with reading lamps were dotted around. The furniture was arranged in a semi-circle around a massive fireplace, where a log fire burned and cracked.

  ‘Over here,’ the librarian said, pointing to a wicker basket by the hearth.

  Adam dropped the wood into basket and dusted himself down. He pulled out his phone. It wasn’t working. ‘I need to be getting home. Do you have a phone I can borrow?’

  The librarian stepped forward and stared at the phone as if he’d never seen one before, just as a crack of thunder rolled overhead. ‘I’m a bit old-fashioned up here on my own, and I don’t have much need to talk to anyone.’

  ‘Guess the storm has knocked out the signal,’ Adam muttered. He was a head taller than the thin librarian, and with the wild grey hair and large hooked nose, he couldn’t help but feel the wiry old man looked like a wise old crow.