The Ritual

annex joined to the main room. ‘Tools and stuff. A nasty-looking scythe in there. I’d hazard a guess this place could be a hundred years old.’ He went
to the little iron stove in the hearth. He patted his dirty hands around its round belly. ‘Bugger’s rusted shut, but it feels dry-ish.’
    Phil was testing the sawbuck table, which creaked under the pressure of his two hands pressing down. Dom had claimed the one seat – a crudely fashioned wooden stool at the head of the
table – and was wincing as he tried to remove his boots. ‘Hutch. Get your mittens on these. I can’t undo the laces. I’m actually scared to see what’s inside. And my
knee feels like a water-skin full of nails. I want the magic spray you had this morning. Then you can get the fire going.’
    From where he was crouching, Hutch grimaced at Dom over his shoulder. ‘I’m seriously thinking of leaving you here in the morning.’
    Around them the house creaked and shifted like a wooden ship trapped in the ice. ‘Is this even safe?’ Phil asked.
    Hutch swore at the stove. And then, without moving his head, he said to Phil, ‘I wouldn’t put it to the test.’
    Luke flashed his torch over the walls and ceiling again. He was the tallest of the four and as he warned himself to watch the low beams, he cracked the side of his head against one of the iron
lamps.
    Phil, Dom and Hutch laughed. ‘You all right, mate?’ Hutch then asked as an afterthought. ‘That sounded nasty.’
    ‘Fine.’ Luke shone his torch at the narrow staircase that led to the second storey. ‘Anyone been up there yet?’
    ‘With this knee,’ Dom said, ‘I’m not moving again until Hutch fetches help and the Swedish air force lands a helicopter in the garden. Ain’t that right, you
hopeless Yorkshire arse? And you can use that map to get the fire going for all the use it’s been.’
    At this, they all laughed. Even Luke who couldn’t help himself, or stop himself from warming to Dom all over again. He was being too sensitive. It was the dreadful forest and the desperate
walking. His thighs still seemed to be moving as if they continued to clamber up and down rocky slopes and stretch over deadwood. They were just tired. That was all. ‘I don’t want to
sound like a fool—’
    ‘That could be a challenge,’ Dom muttered, as he removed his second boot. ‘Where’s the spray, Hutch?’
    Luke looked at Dom. ‘Piss off.’ Then turned to Hutch. ‘But I definitely heard something out there. In the trees.’
    Dom grimaced at him. ‘Don’t start with that crap. Things are bad enough in here without you giving me the shits.’
    ‘I’m not messing around. It was like . . .’ He couldn’t describe it. ‘A crash.’
    No one was listening.
    ‘I want new feet.’ Phil stood up in his socks. ‘Think I might go and check out the bedrooms.’
    ‘I’ll take the one with the en suite,’ Hutch said. He was digging at the door of the stove with the penknife he had bought in Stockholm from the outdoor adventure store. Like
everything else in the country, it hadn’t been cheap. Luke bought one too because he liked the idea of having a knife in the wilderness. Dom dismissed them as being too expensive and said he
would use Hutch’s if he needed it. Phil lost his knife on the first day. He’d left it at the first campsite.
    Outside, the thunder ground iron hulls against granite. A vivid flash of lightning followed and seemed far too close to the house. It lit up the dusty wooden floor by the open door. Phil paused
on the first of the stairs on his way up, and fingered a dark crucifix. As if to himself, he said, ‘You’d think they’d make you feel safe. But they don’t.’

EIGHT
    Phil came down the stairs so quickly it sounded like a fall. If the bangs of his feet didn’t get their attention, his gasps for air did.
    Downstairs, three pairs of eyes went round and white. Three torch beams flashed to the foot of the staircase.
    Through which Phil burst, then fell to his knees. He turned on to his backside and shuffled away from the whole idea of the stairs.
    Inside Hutch’s mind came the image of meat dripping from a tree.
    Dom dropped his feet from the table to the floor. ‘What the hell?’
    Luke stood up from where he had been sitting close to the door, still peering out at the rain as if unable to accept that they intended to spend a night here. He kept his shoulders bent forward
as if expecting a blow; opened his mouth but couldn’t