Craig Speakes - The Keeper. Part 1. An Invitation

It was the summer holidays. School was out. Arthur and his family had packed up their things at the end of July and had moved from their home in the outskirts of London to their grandmother’s little cottage in the Lake District. Built by his great-great-great-grandfather over a hundred years ago, it was situated on the side of a steep, sloping hill and surrounded by a garden so chock-full of apple trees and fruit bushes that there was always something ripe and ready to be picked. It was, without doubt, the holiday that the family most looked forward to each year. And ever since he could remember, Arthur had spent the majority of his summers there.

The time, as usual, had flown by. Those four weeks which had seemed to stretch out before him, full of the promise of exciting adventures, had suddenly turned into one, and the number of adventures: precisely zero. But then, what had he really been expecting? Nothing ever happened at the cottage, and that was OK—it was still way better than being back in the city.

Then, one day towards the end of August, quite unexpectedly, something did happen. Arthur, oblivious to the fact that it was about to, had stayed in bed that morning playing games on his phone as usual, until the rumblings in his stomach had made it impossible to ignore them any longer. Utterly famished, he’d gotten up and ventured into the kitchen to find a large pot of porridge perched on the stove by the window. Still warm, a search for the whereabouts of the strawberry jam had revealed that his aunt had once again attempted to hide it all in the back of a cupboard. And realising that the situation called for him to be extra crafty about it, he poked his head around the door to check that she wasn’t about to walk in and catch him red handed—quite literally in this case—and sneakily helped himself to a large dollop or three. With the jam safely hidden under a layer of mush, he stole outside into the garden to eat it.

One interesting but highly regrettable fact about the summer holidays was that the older he got, the less relaxing they seemed to become. This, he reasoned, could be entirely explained by the lists of chores, tasks, to-do lists (whatever you want to call them), which now appeared every morning like clockwork. And, if that wasn’t bad enough in itself, they were becoming longer and more tedious every year. Clean this… do that… change something else. Most of them, completely unreasonable. After all, what was the point in making your bed or tidying up your things when you were only going to need to sleep in it or use them again? Resistance, however, was useless, and that morning had been no exception.

Rushing to finish his list quickly, he had arrived at the conclusion that it was going to have to be a lake day. That’s not to say that most days weren’t, in fact, lake days, but for some reason, he was especially sure that this one needed to be. And no sooner was everything done than he grabbed his fishing rod and pack, and whatever could be found in the kitchen that looked good, and headed off to the nearby lake. The cat, spying him opening the garden gate, trotted after him.

One of the biggest in the area, the large expanse of water was surrounded by thick pine forests and long stretches of sandy beach. Ever popular with bathers during the hot weather, Arthur would always head to the side that was the least crowded. This was not just because it was obviously far better for fishing, but also because several summers ago he’d made the chance discovery of an old, abandoned jetty there. Hidden from sight by thick reed beds and missing half of its boards, it jutted out just enough for him to be able to see what was happening on the other side without anyone being able to notice that he was there.

Ever careful to avoid giving its location away, he stopped beside the stone that marked the entrance to it, checked that the coast was clear, and climbed into the reeds, working his way along to the end. On the other side of the lake, the usual crowds were having fun splashing around in the warmth of the summer afternoon.

‘Argghh!’ cried Arthur, throwing up his arms to protect his face from the reeds which had suddenly begun thrashing about wildly. Out of the corner of his eye, he could just make out a number of large, dark shadows, thundering overhead. And scrambling to his feet once they’d passed by, he stood watching in amazement as helicopters started setting down amongst billowing clouds of green smoke in the woods on the other side.

‘What the!?’ He mumbled to himself, as men dressed in black uniforms and carrying what looked like guns jumped out and vanished into the foliage.

Unsure what was happening and noticing too that all the bathers were no longer where they should’ve been, Arthur hurriedly gathered his things together and made his way back down the path towards the railway line and the track back to the cottage.

At the end of the lake, the men from the helicopters were busy setting up a barricade across the main road. Curious to see what they were doing, he was just about to duck behind a tree, when he caught sight of them also preparing to block off his way home.

‘You’re too late—it’s closed!’ said one of the men as Arthur sprinted over to them.

‘But I need to go that way to get home.’

‘Where’ve you come from, then?’

‘From the lake.’

‘Impossible—the lake was cleared hours ago.’

‘OK, but that’s where I’ve come from, honestly.’

The soldier eyed him suspiciously.

‘Wait,’ he ordered, pulling a radio from his belt.

‘Colonel, there’s a kid here who says he needs to take the track path to get home… Says he’s been at the lake all this time… I don’t know, he just appeared holding a fishing rod… maybe ten, twelve.’

‘I’m twelve.’

‘Yes, Colonel, I thought it’d been cleared too… Yes, Sir, yes, Sir, I understand.’

‘Alright, you can go through, but you need to keep moving, do you hear me?’ he said, signalling to let Arthur pass. ‘This whole area’s been closed off. You shouldn’t be here.’

Thanking him, Arthur hurried up the steep railway embankment, stopping for a second at the top to catch his breath. About to set off again, a sound, a short way up the tracks, caused him to turn around and look. There, parked in a shaded siding, was a completely black, windowless train. Not very long, but coupled to a massive engine, it seemed to consist entirely of a number of very strange-looking, oblong-shaped carriages. Having never seen any trains use the siding before, and wondering for a second if he might not be able to sneak a closer look at them, a group of soldiers emerging from the surrounding woods made him change his mind and hurry on his way.