30 Nov 1999

    It was everything they had dreamed about for those two dreadful
years.  The gravestones in the Saxon churchyard leaned comfortably at
various angles.  The Tudor beams were authentic, not stockbroker.
Above all, the peace and quiet were just what they needed.  As they
stood at the window, looking across the village street, the had no
idea then of the blackness that lay at its heart.

    Matthew closed the curtains and helped Liz bank the fire.
They'd never had a real fire before, not even a fireplace.  Here they
were turning coals under a big oak mantle that he could have walked
under with barely a stoop.  It was a far cry from their flat in
London.

    Liz smiled.  "I can't believe how quiet it is, compared to
town."

    "Everything is going to be different from now on, Liz.  This is
just what we need."

    Liz put the guard on the fire and wiped her hands.  "First
night in a new house.  I can never sleep."

    Matthew laughed.  "Well after today, I will sleep like the
dead."  He caught her eye, and looked away.  "It's late, and no doubt
everybody in Willoughs Knap will be wanting divorced, sued or last
willed tomorrow."

    He turned out the lamp, and they made their way to the
staircase.  Liz has been quiet all day.  He knew part of her wanted
to stay in London, and that moving here broke the last link with the
life they had known two years ago.  He worried about her a lot.  He
put his hand on her hip as she went up the stairs in front of him.

* * * * *

    Matthew did sleep, but only until a scream from outside woke
him during the night.  He panicked for a moment at the unfamiliar
shadows in the room.

    From the perspective of being awake, he didn't know if he had
dreamed it, or if it was just some unfamiliar country animal.  But
when it came again, it was unmistakably human, and female.  It was
coming from the main street, but just out of sight of their window.

    Matt pressed his face against the pane.  "I can't see anything,
but it came from down towards the shop.  Let's go outside for a
look."

    Liz wrapped a robe around her, and Matthew pulled on a jumper
and quickly stepped into his jeans.  They went outside in their
slippers.

    The air was damp, though it wasn't particularly cold.  The sky
was still quite bright in the west, easily enough for them to make
their way to the location of the scream.  Just as he was beginning to
doubt he had heard anything, it came again, from the direction of the
village store.

    They hurried as best they could in slippers and found a woman
writhing on the road outside the shop front.  She was moaning and
clutching at her body as if in agony.  Liz began to shake her.

    "I think she's having a fit, Matt."

    He tried to grab her hands to stop them tearing at her body.
He had a little success, the woman stopped struggling so much.  He
saw she was in her forties, and quite attractive, but the expression
on her face was far from pleasant.  "Try to make her comfortable.
Are you supposed to put something in their mouth?"

    Liz shrugged, and continued to gently restrain the woman.
Suddenly, she woke up with a shudder.

    She called for a John for a few moments, then seemed to realise
where she was.  She sat up and clutched herself, as if checking for
an injury.  Eventually she spoke.

    "I'm sorry.  I... You must think..."  She sighed with relief.
"You must think I'm quite peculiar."

    Liz glanced at Matt.  "We were just worried when we heard you
scream.  Were you having an epileptic fit or something?"

    "No, honestly.  It was just a dream.  A terrible dream.  I've
had them before.  Please don't trouble yourselves."

    Matthew helped her to her feet.  "Nonsense.  And you must come
into the cottage for a moment.  I don't know about you, but I could
do with a..."  He was about to say he wanted a drink.  "... few
minutes by the fire."

    The three of them returned to the cottage, and Matthew suddenly
thought it rather strange that nobody else in the village had been
disturbed by the noise.  But nobody else had come out, and no lights
showed at any of the windows lining the street.

    Back in the cottage, Liz was trying to get the fire lit, and
Matthew moved towards the boxes, and began digging for the brandy.
"It will have to be in cups, I'm afraid, the glasses are buried in
these boxes somewhere.  We just moved in..."

    "Yes, I know." she smiled, though still holding herself,
sitting on the arm of the big armchair.  "The Moores, you are taking
over the legal practise.  Gossip abounds in this place.  Especially
about new people."

    Liz looked at him strangely.  At last he pulled a dusty bottle
of Courvoisier from the box.  "Ah, this will do."  He poured large
measures into two mugs.  "I'm Matthew, this is Liz."  He handed out
the mugs.  "I don't drink.", he added.

    The woman took it gladly, and drank a large gulp before
speaking.  "I'm Melody Clarke.  People call me Mel, though.  Only
John..."  She broke off and took another gulp.

    "Sorry.", she said.  "John died a year ago. Cancer of the
colon."

    Matt nodded.  "I'm very sorry."  He looked at Liz, who was
staring into the fire.  "We know how it feels to lose someone."

    Mel smiled.  "Don't be.  We had ten wonderful years together.
I was starting to come out of the black time, then this thing started
happening during the night."

    "The bad dreams?" Liz asked.

    "If only it was just dreams..." but she caught herself and
stopped.  She looked at them both for a second, as if she was judging
whether to tell them more or not.

    Liz read her.  "We won't repeat anything you say, of course."

    Mel smiled again.  "Nobody would listen anyway.  They are all
under his spell, and won't hear a word against him."

    Matt frowned.  "Whatever do you mean?  Who has them under his
spell?"

    "Mr. Dedham, of course."

    Matt and Liz shrugged at each other, and Liz poked at the coals
some more.  "I think you'll have to explain a bit more.  Remember,
we're new here, we don't know who Mr. Dedham is."

    Mel finished her drink in a gulp.  "You will, soon enough."

* * * * *

    It wasn't that Matt disliked life stories, but more that he
didn't like exchanging sleeping time for them, especially now the
rush of the excitement had passed and the hypnotic fire was affecting
his ability to keep his eyes open.

    He interrupted Mel's monologue.  "So after living in the city,
you and John felt it would be nice to live in a small town.  Sounds
familiar."

    Mel shrugged.  "We already knew he had the cancer by then.  The
canker he used to call it.  The doctors told him anything up to a
year or more."

    Matt shook his head slowly but Mel stopped him.  "He lasted 18
months, and it wasn't painful until quite close to the end.  Please
don't think of it as tragic.  They were the best months we ever spent
together."

    Liz asked "So how is this Mr. Dedham to blame for your dreams?"

    Mel shuddered visibly.  "Dedham was lovely at first, very
supportive.  He can be very charming, quite debonair the way men of
his years can be.  But soon I began having dreams about him where he
burned me on my husband's funeral pyre."

    "Sounds like one of those suttee things they used to have in
India and such.", Matt said.

    Mel nodded.  "In the dreams, Dedham would order me thrown on
the fire and burnt.  The dreams were bad enough, but when I mentioned
them to Dedham, a change came over him."

    "What do you mean?", Liz asked.

    "Well... you would imagine he would be alarmed, at least, but
supportive and sympathetic."

    "But he wasn't?", Matt asked.

    Mel shook her head.  "He seemed to know all about the dreams.
But worst of all, he told me that I deserved to burn on that fire,
and I would burn every night in my dreams until the time he thought I
was ready."

    "Ready for what?", Liz asked.

    "I don't know.  Every  night he burns me on John's pyre, and
every day I beg him to let it stop."

    Matt shook his head.  "But these are just dreams, no matter
what games this Dedham is playing with you.  They can't hurt you,
unless you continue sleepwalking like tonight."

    Mel looked grim.  "Oh they can hurt all right."  She stood up
and opened her robe.  All over her torso were scorch marks, some
brown and from some time ago, others scarlet and very recent."

    Mel looked at them both.  "I just wish I knew what to say to
stop him."

* * * * *

    The law practise of Adams, Smythe and Holland had been
gathering dust in its latter years.  Old Adams could have laid his
hand on anything he required in the mess, Matt thought, but it was
chaos to him.  Filing had been neglected, and every pile of papers
which he disposed of revealed more dust and paper.  It had taken him
all morning to make the front office a fit place to receive clients.

    Once or twice his quest for order revealed things he thought
old Mr Adams would want forwarded to him, and he dropped these in a
envelope.  He could post it at the post office in the village shop.
While he was there, he could check out this Dedham character too.

    The morning was bright and warm as the sun reached almost
overhead.  The village was still quiet, and Matt encountered nobody
on his way to the village store.

    The shop was quite inviting, with a display of cut flowers
arranged in bouquets in front of the window.  The shop was part of
the ground floor of the cottage, with a small flat above.  Matt had
to stoop as he went in the door.

    The inside was as cosy as the outside promised.  Shelving
around the walls contained tins and boxes, and various knick-knacks
and utensils hung from hooks.  Everything that you might need seemed
to be somewhere.

    A bell over the door jangled as he closed the door, and a short
balding man scuttled out of the back shop and stood beaming behind
the spotless polished counter.  "And a very good day to you, Mr
Moore, and welcome to life in the Knap!"

    Matt smiled back, partly because he hadn't expected the dapper
gent in front of him, after Melody's description of him as a cruel
tormentor.  The suit he wore was blue serge, and the red handkerchief
pulled playfully from the chest pocket was a gay touch in both old
and modern senses of the word.

    "Good morning, Mr... eh... Dedham, I believe.", Matt said.

    "Quite so, Mr. Moore.", again with a grin and an exuberance of
gesture.

    "I only came in to post this letter, but now that I'm here, I
may as well pick up a few things.  We haven't found the tea-bags yet,
they are still packed in a box somewhere.  I'll have some milk and
biscuits to go with that."

    Dedham selected the items, no self-service here.  "And I will
see to the letter... ah, to Mr. Adams, I see.  Your predecessor at
the law practise.  Can't say I knew him myself, I use my own
solicitor.  But a splendid old fellow by all accounts."

    Matt watched as Dedham put his groceries into a carrier bag.
"So I believe."

    "Will you be changing the name of the practice?"

    Matt shrugged.  "I don't think so.  People get attached to the
past, and don't like needless change.  Especially in places like
these."

    "Quite so, Mr. Moore.  But we mustn't let the affairs of our
predecessors affect our own plans, eh?"

    Matt shrugged, having no plans.  Something about Dedham
irritated him, and would have done even if he hadn't heard Melody
Clarke's story about him.  He was over-familiar, and a little
ingratiating in manner.  But apart from that, he seemed harmless.

    He gave Dedham a five pound note, and received his change.
"Well, drop into the office if you are ever in need of legal
service."

    Dedham smiled again, revealing too many teeth.  "Alas, I have
my own solicitor, as I said, but if I ever tire of him, I'll be sure
to call in."

* * * * *

    Liz smiled when he said he had bought some tea.  "And how was
the mysterious Mr. Dedham?  Did he slump out of his coffin and
tighten the bolts on his neck?"

    Matt grinned.  "He was quite pleasant, I suppose.  Something
about him annoyed me, though."  He shook his head.  "Just a feeling.
I won't judge him purely on that flight of fancy we heard in here
last night."

    Liz had been unpacking the carrier bag, but now she had
stopped.

    "What is it Liz?  Don't like that brand of tea?"

    She was holding a bottle of malt whisky, and staring at it as
if it was a bomb about to explode.  "Matt, how could you?  After all
we've been through!"  She was crying.

    "What in hell...?"  Matt grabbed the bottle and shook it.  "I
didn't buy this, I swear!"  He unscrewed the lid and bounded over to
the sink where he upturned the bottle and watched as the golden
liquid spluttered down the drain.

    Liz was still frozen, eyes closed.  "Oh Matt.  You promised."

    He was angry now.  "Look at me, Liz!"  He took her by the
elbows and shook her to get her to open her eyes.  "I didn't buy
that.  I promise."

    She was still shaking her head.  Matt's mind raced, where had
it come from?  "Look Liz, how much money did I have in my wallet this
morning?"

    She looked at him coldly.  "You could have gone to the bank or
something.  Or paid by credit card.  I don't know.  You used to be so
sneaky when you had a thirst for that stuff."

    Matt pulled at his forehead.  "Wait... wait, there must be a
receipt in the bag, check that.  I promise I haven't touched a drop
since the last time, Liz."  His throat was constricting.

    Liz reluctantly turned the plastic bag inside-out.  There was
no receipt, but there was a small folded piece of notepaper.  She
opened it and read it.

    "A little welcome gift for you Matthew, I know how much you
enjoy a tipple.  Signed, Andrew Dedham."

    Matt was stunned into silence for a moment.  "He couldn't know.
He couldn't possibly have known.  Could he?"

    But Liz didn't answer, she had thrown her arms about him, and
when they finally lay there some time later, he knew she was sorry,
but would never trust him again.  Trust was one of the little things
they had once shared, but he had thrown away.  Even if he never drank
another drop, he would be paying forever.

* * * * *

    Even in the depth of sleep, something in him could detect when
the bed lay empty beside him.  He woke with a start, and groaned at a
second night's interrupted sleep.  Liz was not there, and her side of
the bed was cold.  He listened for sounds of her moving around
downstairs for a moment.

    He heard a noise which sounded like the front door slamming,
but it was muffled by distance, and he was still unfamiliar with the
creaks and groans of the old house.  He got up and looked out of the
window, but he couldn't see anybody in the street.

    Resigned to being awake, he pulled on his dressing gown.  Life
in the country wasn't as restful as he had imagined.  He hoped Liz
was making something to eat downstairs.

    As he walked down the creaky staircase, he noticed that the
lights were off downstairs.

    "Liz?  Are you down there, Liz?"

    In answer, he heard a scream from outside which brought a
tightness in his chest and a dryness to his throat that he recognised
and dismissed.  He jumped the last few stairs and swung towards the
front door.  It had been Liz screaming.

    The broken cement pavement jabbed at his bare feet, as he
pounded past the dark unhelpful cottage fronts.  He could hear Liz
whimpering and babbling from the same place they had found Melody the
previous night.

    He arrived at the village store to find Liz pulling at the door
handle of the front shop in hysterics.

    "Liz, what are you doing?  Leave that alone."  He gently prized
her fingers off the door, and held her to him until her protests
calmed into sobs.

    "Oh Matt.  It was such a bad dream."  She began to shiver as
the nightmare left her, and the reality of being out at night in
nothing but a nightgown began to dawn on her.  He wrapped her in his
dressing robe, and led her back towards the cottage.

    She had recovered a little.  "It was him.  Dedham.  He was
saying such horrible things.  He said that he had taken Benjy away
from me, because I am a bad mother."

    Matt winced at that.  He closed the cottage door behind them.
There was nothing he could say to comfort her without opening the
gaping wound that almost finished him off.  He felt the tightness in
his throat but pushed the thought away.  Why had she dredged all this
stuff up again?  She seemed to expect him to say something.  "Benjy's
gone, Liz.  Over two years now.  I thought you were over it?"

    "I was.  But the dream.  It was so vivid.  I could hear Benjy
crying inside that shop, Matt."  She sobbed at the memory of it, that
single baby wail that meant he could be still alive, in spite of the
doctors, in spite of the funeral.  And in spite of watching Matt tear
their lives apart through his drunken grief.   "And that dreadful
voice.  I just wanted to get my baby away from that monster.  I
know...", she broke off and struck a firelighter.  " Benjy isn't in
there.  He's gone, Matt.  I'm all right.  But it seemed so real for a
while."

    Matt shook his head and stared into the rising flames..  "I
don't like this at all.  First Melody has these dreams, then you
start dreaming about Benjy."

    "It was just a dream, Matt."

    He shook his head.  "There's more to it than that.  I'm going
to have it out with this Dedham tomorrow."

* * * * *

    "Matthew, so nice to see you again."

    Matt jarred at Mr. Dedham's over familiarity again, but he was
prepared for it this time.  "Not so nice this time, I think."

    Dedham flashed him a toothy smile and shrugged theatrically.
"A problem, is it?  I'm sure we can sort it out."

    Now that he was here facing him, Matt couldn't find a way to
begin.  He decided that directness was the only way.  He put his
hands on the counter like a negotiator.

    "Do you know a Melody Clark, Mr. Dedham?"

    "Andrew, please.  Names are so important, I find."  Dedham
closed his eyes and smiled as if he had been expecting this
conversation.  "Yes, I know Melody very well.  Very well, indeed if
you understand, we are men of the world."  He gave Matt a vulgar
pantomime wink.

    Matt squirmed inside, but hardened himself to his purpose.
"She seems to think that you have some sort of hold over her and the
rest of the people in the village.  Something like hypnosis or
something equally sinister."

    Dedham made a mock stern face.  "I don't know what nonsense
Melody has been telling you.  She's a very silly girl."

    Matt dismissed it with a wave.  "Look Dedham, what you get up
to with others isn't my business.  But when you start messing with my
wife and causing her to have distressing dreams..."

    "Matthew, please.  I think you're over-reacting just a bit.  I
have no idea what you are talking about.  If you and your wife are
having... problems you haven't resolved... then I am truly sorry."

    Matt felt a tightness in his throat.  "Now look, just what do
you mean?  You don't know anything about us, or our problems, and I
would appreciate it if you wouldn't act as if you do."

    Dedham smiled. "Ah, but in small villages, these sorts of
things get around.  I'm only concerned about you both.  Cot death is
a terrible way to lose a child, Matthew.  Nobody blames you for
turning to drink, my friend.  Nobody blames you.  Now your lovely
wife..."

    Matt was trembling.  His throat was screaming for the fiery
touch of bottled oblivion.  He pointed a trembling finger at Dedham,
but there was no cutting comeback line.  Either the whole village was
afire with talk of their past, or this Dedham was a peculiar and
dangerous gossip.

    "Just..." he faltered.  "Just stop it, whatever you're doing.
I don't want you going near my wife, in dreams or anywhere else."

    Dedham shook head head in mock sadness as Matt stormed out.

* * * * *

    Matt kicked against the languid grasp of the clammy fingers of
underwater plants as they wrapped around his bare legs.  Fighting for
breath, he kicked both legs in a single stroke and clutched his way
through the inky water towards the surface.

    Time seemed to slow as his face threatened to break the
underside of the rippling surface. The last few inches seemed to take
as long as the many feet he had already swam.  Black fingers
threatened the edges of his vision with unconsciousness.

    Just as he was about to slide backwards into their grasp, he
broke the surface.  It was almost as dark above as it had been below,
but he could breathe here, and his lungs grasped at the cold
delicious air.

    He looked around and immediately recognised where he was.  Of
course.  Those gasometers had been demolished in the early seventies.
The whole canal was now under a motorway. He was in a dream.  The
knowledge did little to warm him against the chilling dark water.

    When the dream refused to vanish, he began to swim for the
shore.  As he turned in the water he noticed a small grubby boy on
the shore.  The boy was prodding a stick into the water and weeping
as he did so.

    In a flash of dream insight he realised that the boy was
himself, and with a lurch in his stomach he recognised the tableau.
He had forgotten this terrible day, and kept on forgetting it every
time it fought to the surface.  As he had grown older, his mind had
grown more adept at crushing it as it appeared from time to time.

    But now he realised he was going to see it all over again in
glorious detail.  He shook off his growing sense of horror and began
to swim towards the boy and his dreadful work.  Perhaps he could
interfere, it was his dream, after all.

    The boy wore blue faded denims, and a newer denim jacket over a
green army-surplus jumper.  Matt remembered every detail of the nylon
shoulder patches and the hole under the sleeve from an accident with
barbed wire, though he could honestly say he hadn't thought about it
at all in twenty years.  Amazing the junk the human brain ferrets
away...

    Matt called out to the boy, but he seemed not to hear him, but
continued to prod the water with the pole, crying softly in the dull
cold rain.

    As he neared the shore, he could see the brown wet sack that
wriggled and struggled and refused to sink.  His face was inches away
and he could hear the kittens inside mewing and choking as the boy
pushed one end then the other under the black water.

    Matt fought back the dark panic that made his throat dry
despite the icy choking canal water he had swallowed.  He cried out
for the boy to stop, just let the kittens go, Dad would never know he
hadn't drowned them.  But the boy seemed oblivious to his cries.

    At last he was near enough to grab the pole, but with no
purchase in the water he did little more than dunking himself a few
more times as he tried to wrestle the pole away from the sack.

    The boy looked at him at last, but the stare was not the
pathetic disgusted eyes that he remembered of himself, but something
blacker and less forgiving.  And when he spoke, it was not the voice
of himself as a youngster, but the chilling snarl of Dedham.

    "Matthew, don't struggle.  There isn't a thing you can do to
save these kittens."  He gave the sack a vicious jab.  "They are long
dead."

    Matt spluttered in the gloom.  "This is just a dream, Dedham.
You can't scare me the same way you scared others."  His words
carried more bravura than he felt.

    The boy looked at him with pity, as if he was a drowning kitten
himself.  "You know better than that, Matthew.  This is no dream.
This really happened, you really drowned these kittens.  It is still
happening in time somewhere."

    "That's not true, it's gone, it's all in the past."

    "The past exists.  Is this not real enough for you?  Can you
not feel the cold water on your neck?  Can you not hear the panic of
these kittens?  Come Matthew, you know it all exists.  You never
forgave your father for making you drown them.  This is where your
childhood died."

    Matthew could feel it.  He knew what was coming next, the
tearful flight after the drowning, the night spent sleeping on a
train station bench, the... other terrible thing that had happened.
More than his childhood had died.  His throat felt tight.

    "That's it, Matthew, feel it all.  When the police brought you
home, your father leathered your legs with a belt.  Ah, the
indignity, after so much else had been taken from you."

    Matt wrestled with the pole, panicking like the screeching
kittens.  "No... you don't know anything."

    The boy smiled.  "I know everything, Matthew.  And it won't be
the last time we shall visit this scene, I am sure."

    He struggled with the pole, but went under again, taking
another gullet full of water.  The dry painful tears of the memory of
his torn childhood mingled with the tightness, and made the canal
water taste like whisky.  He broke the surface again.

    "Drink it down, Matthew, it tastes good.  It takes away the
hurt, isn't that so?  Your father won't mind.  Drink it down and
close your eyes, Matthew.  Soon you will feel no more."  The boy
pushed him under with the pole, weeping as he did so.

    Water flowed into his lungs, as he watched the image of himself
as he was on the other side of that hurt fade away.  His body went
limp as he blacked out.

* * * * *

    The cold woke him an instant later.  Liz was shaking him and
sobbing.

    "I'm here... Liz.  I'm ok."

    She stammered.  "No Matt.  No you're not.  I thought you had
stopped breathing.  If I hadn't heard you shouting I would have been
up there asleep still, and you might never have woken up.  I thought
you were dead..."

    Matt felt like death, but the cold told him he was alive.  "It
was just a dream, Liz, it wasn't real."  He peered around the street
and at the dark windows above the shop as they watched them.  He felt
sure Dedham was up there in the shadows, awake and aware.

    Liz helped him to his feet.  "Let's get back to the cottage and
get you out of these wet things."

    "Wet things...?"  He rubbed his hands over his dressing gown
and pyjama legs.  They were soaked through.  He began to shake
violently.

* * * * *

    Melody flicked her hair behind her ear.  "So now you both know
what I mean.  He's got a hold of your dreams now, and he won't let
go."

    Matt had flipped the closed sign on the shop when Mel and Liz
had arrived late morning.  "What I don't get is why.  What is he
getting out of it?  What does he want from us?"

    Liz shook her head at the memory.  "Nothing.  He just enjoys
tormenting us.  He's evil."

    Matt shrugged.  "I've tried asking a few people about him.  But
they're not saying.  Some of them were downright rude about it.  Do
you think he does it to everyone?"

    Melody shrugged.  "I just wish I knew how he does it.  Some
sort of hypnotism, do you think?  If we knew, we might be able to
stop him."

    Hypnosis seemed the logical, scientific explanation to Matt.
He had his own fears and suspicions, but he kept them to himself.  No
need to upset either of them with his own mad theories.  He prided
himself on being a rational educated man, but this had shaken him.
If he was honest, Dedham scared him.

    Could it be hypnosis?  Matt grasped momentarily at the idea,
which was certainly less frightening than the horror story his own
mind was concocting.  But one bald fact demolished the theory
straight away.  Liz had been haunted in her dreams by the Dedham
creature, and she had never even met him in person.  And as far as he
knew, hypnosis by remote control was not possible.

    "We have to find out more about him.  Find out if he has any
family, what his background is.  See if we can get some dirt on him."

    Melody hummed.  "I've been in his flat."  She noticed their
looks.  "Oh nothing like that, thank goodness."  She shuddered
perceptibly.  "He made me dinner.  This was before I knew what a vile
creature he was."

    Matt perked.  "So did you notice anything unusual about the
place?  Anything that could help us?"

    Mel rubbed a line across her eyebrows as she thought back.  "He
lives alone, I know that.  The place is fanatically tidy.  Spartan,
even.  Oh, there was a chest."

    Liz laughed.  "A chest?  You mean like a pirate's chest?"

    Melody smiled.  "Yes, that's what I mean.  It looked so out of
place that I asked him what he kept in it.  He told me nothing.  He
never once left  me alone, so I never found  out for sure."

    Matt pondered.  "I'd like to get in that flat when Dedham's not
around.  See what he keeps in that chest. I just want to find
something we can use against him.  I couldn't go through another
dream like that."

    Melody smiled thinly.  "It's not pleasant."

    Matt nodded.  He had only experienced one frightful nightmare,
poor Mel had been through her own countless times.  He made a
decision.  "Dedham must leave the village sometime.  We'll just wait,
then I'll get in through a window or something, and have a sniff
around."

    Liz looked at him disapprovingly, but she knew he was right.
Even if she could bear to hear Benjy cry out for her every night, she
knew that Matt might not wake up from his drowning nightmare the next
time.

    "You won't have to wait long.", Mel said.  "Today is half day
closing.  Dedham always goes into town to the cash and carry on a
Wednesday."

* * * * *

    The main street of the village was no more busy than anywhere
else.  The shop was closed, and nobody was inside.  Matt and Liz
walked around the frontage to make sure Dedham had gone.

    Matt pulled Liz  towards the porch door at the side of the
building.  "I can't see his car, and there's nobody in the shop.  I
think he's gone for the rest of the afternoon."

    "I  don't feel good about this, Matt."  She clutched at his arm
nervously.  "What if he comes back?"

    Matt smiled.  "Well, you keep lookout for me.  If you see him
coming back, shout for me.  Don't worry, I'll be out of there quick
enough."

    "I still don't know..."

    Matt had already inserted the steel ruler between the door and
the jamb.  "A bit of a wriggle, and..."  The latch went up, and the
door opened.  "They're not as security conscious in the country."

    "Be careful, Matt.  I don't trust Dedham."

    But he was already closing the door behind him.  The vestibule
was dark and cool, and he listened for a moment for sounds of life
before starting up the stairs.  The house was completely silent.

    The stairs were carpeted in faded floral, and climbed steeply
above the shop below.  At the top, a hallway led past a sitting room,
small kitchen, and bathroom.  At the front of the house was the
bedroom, and Matt crept in, expecting Dedham to jump out at him.

    The room was bright, the bed was crisply made, and a blue serge
suit hung from a hanger on the wardrobe door.  A dressing table with
no mirror occupied the gap between the two windows, and Matt peered
out of one of them.

    Liz was down there, but she couldn't see him in the darkness of
the room.  Below the window, the frontage of the shop stuck out a
couple  of feet, and Dedham had arranged a regiment of potted plants
on it.  Matt realised with a chill that this was probably the place
that Dedham watched from when his victims walked and wept in their
sleep.

    He dragged himself away from the comfortable scene of the
outside world.  He was in the spider's lair, and he had no time to
waste if he was to find something he could use against Dedham.

    The bedroom held nothing obvious, so Matt went back down the
corridor to the living room.  It was almost as bare as the bedroom,
but Matt's eyes were immediately drawn to the only odd thing in the
room.  The treasure chest on the sideboard.

    It was solid wood, and dark.  The touch of it told a thousand
stories.  It was only about two feet long, eighteen inches wide by
the same deep.   A miniature pirate's chest, with shiny golden clasps
which popped easily under his thumbs.

    He cracked open the chest, but a sudden doubt struck him.  What
was he doing?  Breaking into a somebody's house, raiding his secret
places.  And what had he done to deserve it?  Nothing that would
stand up in court.  Dreams and theories.  He shook his head..

    Well, he was here now, no harm in taking a peek.  The lid
folded back on smooth hinges.  Matt peered inside, but could see
nothing.  The interior was lined in dark ruffled velvet, and he
shuffled around inside with his hand.  Snuggled into the folds of
lining was a tube of something, like a tightly rolled scroll of
paper.

    A sharp rattle from the bedroom at the other end of the hall
made him start.  It sounded like hailstones on the window, and almost
as soon as he realised it might be a sign from Liz, he heard the
front door slam shut downstairs.

    Fear held him frozen for a moment, but slamming the chest
closed onto its sprung catches, he danced out into the hallway.  The
bend in the stairwell obscured his view, but he caught a  glimpse of
Dedham's balding pate as he was taking off a pair of gloves at the
bottom of the stair.

    He darted into the bedroom again.  Perhaps Dedham would go to
the bathroom or the living room, and give him a chance to get down
the stairs.  Or perhaps he would come into the bedroom and discover
him cowering there.

    He peered out the window, and the sight of Liz out there in the
safety of the outside made him lightheaded.  He could have done with
a drink right then.

    He heard Dedham start up the stairs, and realised that the
chances of getting out the flat the same way he came in were scarce.
Frantically, he looked around for a suitable hiding place.  There was
a single wardrobe, but Matt didn't relish hiding in there.

    Through the door, he saw Dedham's hand on the stair post at the
top of the stairs.  A second before his head came into vew, Matt
dropped to the floor, and scrambled under the bed.

    Dedham came straight into the bedroom, and walked over to the
window.  Matt hoped Liz had moved away from the front of the shop.
He followed the progress of Dedham's feet across the polished floor
of the bedroom.  They paused at the wardrobe, where Dedham took off
his coat and hung it up inside.

    Matt was only inches away from Dedham's highly polished shoes,
and he held his breath to a whisper.  The quiet of the room was
oppressing, and Matt was sure that Dedham was simply listening.
Listening for his heartbeat as it thumped in his throat.

    But after a moment, the feet moved out of the room, and Matt
could hear Dedham working in the kitchen.  He wondered if he could
sneak down the stairs as Dedham was distracted, but the kitchen door
was halfeay down the hall, and faced the top of the stairs.

    He slid out from under the bed and lingered at the window.
Steeling himself,    he flipped up the ornate brass lever on the
window, and opened it carefully.  He kicked a leg through, and then
balancing on the ledge, he pulled through his other leg, and closed
the window behind him.

    Liz hissed from below when she spotted him above her.  "He's in
the house, Matt.  He was only round the back fixing his car."

    Matt shuffled around, looking for a way down.  "I know!  I
thought I was a goner.  How do I get down before he catches me?"

    He sat down near the corner of the building, and swung down
until he was hanging from the ledge by his hands.  After a moment, he
let go, and landed badly on the uneven, broken concrete.

    Liz helped him up, and they both made their way back along the
road towards the cottage. Matt still couldn't believe that he'd
managed to get out undiscovered.  "Just my luck that I decide to
break in the only Wednesday when the beast has only nipped out for a
minute."

    Liz was looking impatient.  "So what did you find?  Let me see
it."

    "See what?"  He looked at where Liz was pointing.  He stared at
his hand as if it was a clever traitor. He couldn't even remember
taking it.  Crushed, and a bit worse for wear, he clasped the scroll
from the chest in his hand.

* * * * *

    Liz had her hands on her hips.  "You don't think this is a bit
much?  We might not have a dream tonight."

    "It's just a precaution.  Look. there's two double-throw locks
on the front door.  We'll lock them both.  You hide one key,  I'll
hide the other, that way neither of us can wander out in the night."

    Liz took her key.  "So what use is the scroll you found?  And
what will you say when Dedham finds  out it's gone?"

    "Why should he suspect I have it?"

    She clutched at the skeletal finger of the old key. "I don't
know, Matt, he seems to know everything."

    Matt shhrugged.  "I'll take a drive over to see Guy in the
morning, this is right up his street.  He'll have that dog-Latin
translated in a jiffy.  Do you fancy a trip to the university?"

    Liz shook her head as they went up the stairs.  "No thank you!
You know I think Guy's a snoot.  Anyway, Mel's coming round.  We're
going to make dried flower baskets for the fair tomorrow night."

    At the top of the stairs, Matt looked down for a last survey
before snapping off the light switch.  Absently, he caught the end of
what Liz had said.  "Fair?  What fair?"

    "Not sure.  Mel says they have it every year.  Some sort of
traditional village celebration or something.  Anyway, there will be
stalls and a bonfire.  A good chance to meet the rest of the
villagers."

    Matt grunted.  "The ones I've met were a little peculiar.  I
wonder what they dream about?"

    "Oh don't, Matt.  I'd almost forgotten about that.  It's my
turn tonight again.  I won't sleep a wink."

    They undressed quickly and hopped into bed.  Matt sunk down
under the covers.  "Have you hidden your key?"

    Liz sighed.  "Yes.  But I still think it's a bit much."  She
turned over and fluffed her pillow.

* * * * *

    He had walked all day, his face streaked with tears.  Streets
that had once been friendly seemed to shun him as he wandered past
their turned backs.  The realisation that he was dreaming washed over
him as an irrelevancy.

    Why had his father forced him to drown those kittens?  He still
didn't understand, even after all these years.  His wandering had
brought him through streets and back-alleys he had barely recognised,
but he had stopped now.

    The dream refused to let him move his feet.  He was outside his
own front door.  The shock of recognition was followed by a pang of
guilt and longing.

    His father was in there, alive.  He could open that door and go
in and ask him, speak to him, clear the air.  But those were adult
thoughts, he knew.  The real Matthew, the boy, could not see the
years ahead full of cowed hatred for his father, the unhealed rift.
The tired old man dying of lung cancer without his youngest son
crossing the rift of forgiveness.

    He wanted to reach out and open the door, but he turned and
ran, as he knew he must do, and didn't look back.  One decision that
separated two versions of reality that could never meet.

    He ran, and watched the flight through tears he did not fully
feel.  In a timeslip that he had often felt in dreams, it became
late.  The light was peeling from the western sky as the boy went
through the archway onto the deserted railway platform.

    He found a bench to lie on, safe in the knowledge that there
was no train stopping there until morning.  The ticket office was
closed, and the station was not large enough to have a night guard.
The place was deserted.

    But Matt was remembering, and felt like screaming at the young
boy to get out of the station right then.  Was he going to have to
live through it again?

    Even though he knew it was coming, the cough from behind his
ear gave him a shock.  In the fading light, he saw the man was not as
old as he remembered, but the smell of earth and rotting food was
real.  His clothes were dirty and seemed to bulge in all the wrong
places.

    And his eyes were different.

    "We meet again, Matthew.  I made a special effort to arrange
this visit."

    "You!"

    "Quite so.  I believe you have some property of mine.  I would
very much like to have it back."

    Matt sat up on the bench to avoid the tramp's oily breath.
"This didn't happen, he never spoke to me... until afterwards."

    The tramp gave an exaggerated shrug.  "This is just a dream, my
dear fellow.  I can make it go any way I want to."  He grabbed the
boy by the jacket and pulled him close.

    Matt stammered.  "Let me go, I can't face this."  His mind was
racing ahead, discovering variations of this nightmare that he had
carefully buried under the shifting sands of life.  "Let me go,
please."

    "Such a polite child.  I always think that children should be
polite to their elders.  They shouldn't be rude, and they should
never steal, Matthew.  Good children never steal, and don't need to
be punished."

    Matt struggled as the tramp ran filthy fingers over his cheek
and down his chest.  "I didn't steal anything, now let me go.  Let me
wake up, for God's sake!"

    The tramp eyed him.  "So you call on Him at this late hour.  He
can't help you.  It's just you and me in this deserted place.  I
think you will give me back what is mine, after tonight.  After your
baptism."

    Matt recoiled with horror, and managed to break away.  He ran
along the platform and bounded up the rivetted iron footbridge steps.
With dismay, he saw the tramp follow, and he knew from memory the
mistake he had made.  There was no exit from the other platform.

    The tramp was gasping as he made the head of the stairs.  Matt
paused, and watched with horror as the boy that he had been turned
and lost his footing and tumbled down the hard sharp steps to the
platform below.

    He had ended up on his back, uninjured, but stunned.  The tramp
came down the stairs like a dark swooping bird of prey.  "Return it
to me, Matthew, and perhaps you live this scene for the last time
tonight."

    In dreamy slow motion, the boy struggled to get to his feet.
Arms and legs conspired in panic to prevent him from escaping.
Suddenly, a late train passed through the station and cut off his
only means of getting away.

    The adult Matt watched through the child's eyes as the tramp
struggled with the catch on his trousers.  Matt remembered the
senseof loathing and premonition that had washed over him as he lay
there.  Dedham was gone from the tramp's eyes then, leaving only the
filthy, mindless animal.  The tramp began to grin horribly as he
reached out for the boy.   As the train flickered out of existence,
the young Matthew Moore gave a cry  that could never be taken back.

* * * * *

    "Matt!  Are you all right?  Wake up!  You've fallen down the
stairs!"

    Matt felt the cool wood panelling behind his stiff back, and
his legs twisted awkwardly up the stairs in front of him.

    A tear escaped from his eye.  "My father beat me when the
police brought me back, Liz. I never forgave him.  But he didn't
know.  I didn't tell anybody.  Not a soul."

    Liz helped him up.  "Didn't know what?  Was it one of Dedham's
nightmares?"

    Matt groaned and felt for injuries.  "Oh yes, it certainly
was."  Apart from a few sore points he guessed would bruise, he
appeared to be whole.

    "Me and my father, Liz.  You never understood.  Perhaps I'll
tell you one day."  He wiped the tear streak from his cheek.  "He
never knew, but I blamed him all the same."

    Liz put her arms around him.  There was nothing else she could
do.

* * * * *

    Matt ran a finger along the bookshelf in Guy Giscard's study.
"You know I only scraped through Legal Latin."

    "With a great deal of coaching from me, I seem to remember.",
Guy laughed.  He was peering through a large magnifying glass that
Matt had thought only existed in detective stories.  The scroll from
Dedham's chest was spread out on a drawing board.

    Matt felt suddenly very silly bringing this problem to Guy.
Good friends at University, Matt had been studying law, and Guy had
been studying Mediaeval History.  They had met in an elementary Latin
grammar class, and been friends ever since.

    Here, at the University, the troubles with Dedham and dreams
seemed far away and irrational.  But his Latin was not up to
translating the scrawling blackhand of the scroll.

    "Quite fascinating.  Can I ask where you got this?  Or is it a
vital piece of evidence in a high court trial?  Is it still sub
judice, and I'll be whisked away to the Tower for enquiring?"

    Matt smiled.  "No, it belongs to someone in the village we
moved to.  I just want to know what it is and what it says."

    "Well, it's a grimoire."

    "A what?"

    "A legal contract, if you like, between a servant and master.
There are quite a few examples in the Ashmolean, but this one is
particularly good."

    "So who is the master?"

    Guy took off his round framed spectacles, and smoothed his
pointed academician beard.  "I spend so much time with other
Mediaevalists that I sometimes forget to explain things that are
taken as givens in the field."

    "A grimoire is a pact with the Devil, old man.  This is a fine
example of a Tabotan contract, late fourteenth century, from the look
of it."

    Matt groaned inwardly.  "A contract with the Devil?"

    "Old Horny himself.  Could you ask your friend how much he
would like for this piece?  It's a lovely example of its kind..."

    "You mean there are others?"

    "Oh dozens.  This is the first Tabotan I have personally
handled, though.  It would make a great addition to the collection
here."

    "What is this Tabotan you keep mentioning?"

    "Ah Matthew, my dear fellow.  More people should study the
superstitions of the mediaeval period."

    "So tell me."

    Guy settled his glassesback on his nose.  "In those days, of
course, there was all manner of heresy in these shores.  The church
was so powerful that when you fell foul of its rule of law, you were
outcast.  It was more than a religious excommunication.  You lost
your home, your family, yor job.  Even your right to walk on the
church's land, which was almost everywhere in those days.

    "Such people felt such a sense of rejection that many of them
embraced forms of worship that were decidedly anti-Christian.  It was
during this period that Satanism as an occult practse was born,
really just a mixed up form of Christianity."

    "You mean witches and such like?"

    Guy laughed.  "No, certainly not.  Witchcraft was part of a
whole gamut of pagan religions which had refused to die out with the
spread of Christianity.  These Satanists were a new thing, later
clergymen just confused the two in order to wipe out the pagans."

    "So where do these Tabotans fit in?"

    "A Tabotan is a dreamcaster.  He is able to divine people's
worst fears and darkest secrets, and then torment them in the form of
nightmares.  All superstitious nonsense, of course."

    Matt smiled, thinly.  "Of course."

    "Once a Tabotan had his claws into him, the victim was usually
driven to madness or suicide.  Unless he managed to invoke a release
from the Tabotan's spell, that is."

    "And how did you get such a release."

    Guy shrugged.  "Stories differ.  There is a story of a Tabotan
from the town of Sion in Switzerland, though it was part of the
Franks empire then, after Chilperic lost parts of Lorraine and
Aquitain..."

    "Guy, please.  The Tabotan..."

    Guy laughed and waved him off.  "The way to get a Tabotan off
your back is a simple trick.  You just utter his name aloud to him."

    "And that's it?  You just say 'Rumplestiltskin' and he vanishes
in a puff of smoke?"
    "Quite so.  The fairy tale tormentor bears a striking
resemblance to our Tabotan, don't you think?"

    Matt was deep in thought.  "And Rumplestiltskin tormented
mothers over their babies too."

    Guy peered at him sideways, but didn't pursue it.  "As usual,
the signature of these documents is completely illegible.  Makes
sense, don't you agree, if you are trying to hide your name from
people."

    Matt went over and squinted at the signature on the grimoire,
but as he looked, it seemed to writhe and change under his gaze.  But
he was sure of one thing.  It looked nothing like the signature of an
Andrew Dedham.  That was not his real name at all.

    Guy unpinned the scroll, rolled it up carefully, and handed it
to Matt.  "I wish you would ask your friend how much he wants for
this."

    Matt looked at him grimly.  "Honestly, Guy, I don't think you
would want to pay the price he would ask."

* * * * *

    As he indicated to take the exit from the bypass, he felt the
dread come over him again like a sudden ague.  His afternoon sitting
in the cosy academia of Guy's study seemes like part of another life
already, or perhaps a dream.

    He had to face the fact that he was up against a being that
wasn't part of the other reality.  He had wanted to tell Guy about
Dedham, that he had stumbled across a live modern-day Tabotan.  But
back there, the idea seemed as ludicrous as it now seemed inevitable.

    Whatever occult supernatural power Dedham wielded, it grew
almost visible as he turned into the village main street.  What had
seemed a childish superstition back at the university was fact in the
Knap.

    He parked the car up, and as he was getting  out, Melody came
hurrying across the street.  She was in a state, and it was a while
before he got any sense out of her.

    "What do you mean gone?  Gone where?"

    She shook her head.  "I don't know.  She just got up and went
out.  I tried asking where she was going, but it was as if she was
listening to a voice I couldn't hear."

    He grabbed her wrists.  "But where did she go?"

    She burst into tears again.  "She went into the shop, Dedham's
shop.  I couldn't stop her.  I couldn't... I can't go in there, Matt.
She hasn't come out."

    He let her go.  "Right.  Time I spoke to Mr. Dedham again.  Or
whatever his damned name is."

    As he walked towards the shop, asudden panic struck him.  Why
had Liz gone?  The last they had spoken, nothing could have compelled
her to go near the shop.  His only fear was that Dedham had cast a
spell over her again.  If the dream about Benjy was as heart-
wrenching as  his, anything was possible.

    His hand on the door handle was cold and wet.  The bell above
the door rang a hollow welcome, and Dedham looked upwith a pantomime
grin as he saw it was Matthew.

    "Ah Matthew, I've been expecting you.  I believe you have
something for me.  And then perhaps I have something for you."

    "I've no time for this.  Where is my wife?"

    Dedham shrugged.  "She's not here.  She did drop in to see me
earlier, a delightful creature.  She seemed rather distracted.  To be
honest, I didn't really understand what she wanted.  Something about
her baby, but you don't have a child, isn't that correct?"

    Matt ignored him, and slipped doggedly round the counter and
into the back shop.  It was really just the triangluar space under
the stairs to the flat above, and it wasn't lage enough to conceal a
person.  There were some old sandwich boards with Grimms written on
them, and a few boxes wit tins in them.

    He turned to face Dedham.  "Your flat upstairs, you could be
hiding her there."

    Dedham smiled and patted him on the shoulder.  "Come then, we
shall look for her together.  I believe you know your way around my
house already..."

    Dedham flipped the open sign over to closed, allowed Matt out,
then locked the shop up.  They went around the side, and he let them
into the house.

    Dedham sounded almost apologetic.  "I think you'll find the
flat is unoccupied."  He let Matt go up the stairs first.

    After a thorough search, Matt had to concede that Liz wasn't in
the flat. They stood in the living room, Matt suddenly losing the
anger that had driven him into the monster's lair again.  He had been
so sure Liz would be here that he had no further plan of action, and
he simply stood there, with no sense of will.

    Dedham seemed to sense his growing discomfort, and he seemed to
grow in stature with Matt's sapping ire.  He moved over to the wooden
chest.

    "I don't think you understand just how important that document
is to me.  You don't see the significance of it."

    "Oh I know exactly what it is.  You..."  He pointed as accusing
finger.  "You're a Tabotan or something.  Oh I know all about it, and
I know just how to get rid of you."

    Dedham let his eyes bulge a little, then he burst into a dry
rattling laugh.  He threw his head back as the cackle filled the
room.  "Bravo, my fine Matthew!  Bravely said!"

    Matt grew uneasy at Dedham's reaction, and he suddenly realised
just how weak his poker hand was.  He still had no idea what Dedham's
real name was.  And if this creature really was in league withthe
Devil himself...

    "I have to go find my wife.  Just leave us alone, or I'll..."

    "I'll see you later, Matthew, at the Wickerswane celebration.
Be sure to bring our little unmentionable with you.  It's a fire-
festival, you know.  A tradition in these parts for many a year."

    Matt ran leaping down the stairs, and slammed the front door
behind him.  It was around tea-time, and the village was unusually
busy as he made his way back to the car to retrieve the grimoire from
the glove compartment.  It was his only bargaining chip, and it was
going into the ofice safe.

* * * * *

    "I don't think we're going to find it, Matthew." Melody said,
as she finished scanning another folder.  "I would imagine he
wouldn't make take such a risk with his real name."

    Matt swept back his hair in frustration.  "You're right.  But I
just had to check.  Old man Adams had such a bad filing system that
the very thing we need could be here somewhere, and we would never
find it."

    Dedham had told him he had his own solicitor, and it looked to
Matt as if it might be the case.  The search had taken his mind off
Liz for a while, but the anxiety returned with a vengence.

    "Why did she go, Mel?  Didn't she give you any idea?"

    Mel shook her head.  "She didn't even give me any warning.  One
minute we were talking, and the next she was striding across the
street.  It was like in the movies when somebody hears a word that a
hypnotist has planted there.  Her face looked blank.  As if she was
listening to someone speaking to her through an earphone."

    Matt pondered, then shrugged.  "She isn't at Dedham's, that's
for sure.  If he has hypnotised her like you say, then I suppose I'll
just have to give in, and give him back the grimoire."

    Mel sat on the edge of the desk.  "And then what?  Do you think
he's going to leave you alone?"

    "I don't know.  Probably not.  All I know is that we couldn't
stay here with those dreams."

    Mel nodded and was quiet in thought for a moment.  "Where does
Dedham take you, Matt?  What have you ever done that was so horrible
that gives him such a handle on you?"

    Matt stiffened and wished for a drink to ease his dry throat.
But Mel's steady eyes allowed him to relax a little.  "Something
happened to me when I was just a boy.  Something I almost succeeded
in forgetting."

    "What was it?"

    He shouldn't be telling her this, he hadn't told anybody, even
Liz.  But her eyes held no judgement, and he found the way her arm
supported her on the desk and the easy cross of her legs comforting.
Her closeness and existence gave him the courage to verbalize the
horror.

    "When I was about ten years old, I took in a stray cat.  I had
to beg my father to let me keep her, he loathed them.  He made me
promise to look after it and not let it have kittens."

    "And it did..." Mel's eyes flicked the ceiling.

    "You know how stray cats are.  She might already have been
pregnant when I took her in.  Anyway, six kittens came along, and my
father told me I would have to drown them in the river."

    "Oh, how horrible."

    Matt nodded.  "When you're young, you listen to your father, he
is the embodiment of law and justice.  You just don't stop to
question the rights or wrongs of it.  Not then, anyway."

    "So you did it?"

    Matt nodded.  "I hated myself for it, and I hated him for
making me do it.  It was the first time I realised that  my father
could be unfair, wrong.  I couldn't face it.  I ran away from home."

    Melody put a hand on his shoulder.  "You don't need to go on,
Matt."

    "I want to.  I need to tell somebody."  He wondered what female
intuition had warned her of the dangerous territory.  But he still
felt safe.

    He went on.  "I slept rough, in a train station.  It was my
first night away from home.  A tramp got a hold of me in the night.
He raped me, Mel.  A ten year old boy."

    "Oh Matt."  She shuffled off the desk onto his lap and
enveloped him with her arms.  "That's awful.  Just awful."

    Matt shuddered tearlessly in her embrace.  "I never told
anybody.  I didn't understand what had happened.  Something was
frozen solid inside me."

    Melody rocked him gently, but said nothing to interrupt his
torrent.

    "Do you  know the worst thing?  When the  police brought me
home, my father beat me with his belt.  I hadn't told him.  I really
think things might have been better if I'd told him."

    The tears came then at the thought of his father.  He had been
running away ever since.  He noticed Mel's hair in his hand, and her
smell in his face.  He felt her thighs against his legs.

    Their lips met for a moment, and Matt teetered on the edge of a
precipice.  He pulled back.  "I can't, Mel."

    She put her finger on his lips. "I know.  I'm sorry."

    "No, please.  My fault."

    He let her slip off his lap.  She fixed her hair and  pulled a
seat over so that they were facing knees almost touching.

    He tried to smile, but gave up.  "It wouldn't be right.  It
would just be more running away.  I've always tried to drown myself
when things got tough."  He shook himself.  "I could murder a drink."

    A bang from outside made them both jump.

    Mel laughed.  "Seems like the celebrations have started."  She
patted Matt's knee.  "Maybe Liz will turn up at the Wickerswane."

    Matt got up and shrugged.  He went to the small office safe and
unlocked it.  "Whatever happens, he's got me beat.  He can have this
back."  He  pulled out the scroll and slipped it into his jacket
pocket.

    As they paused in the small porch to let Matt lock the office
up, a thought came to him.  "So now you know my darkest secret.  Are
you going to tell me what Dedham has on you that's so terrible?"

    Mel folded her arms and shrugged.  "Oh it's nothing."

    Matt encouraged her with a raised eyebrow.

    "Oh, near the end, when John was bad, I gave him an injection.
Morphine.  It was a lethal dose, Matthew."

    Matt nodded.

* * * * *

    He had never seen so many people in the village, and he doubted
there were enough houses to contain the crowd which milled on the
village green.

    Mel confirmed his suspicion.  "Most of these people are from
the other towns in the area.  They don't know what a thoroughly
horrid place this is, thanks to that monster Dedham."

    "Speak of the... devil.", Matt pointed.  "There he is, up on
the platform by the bonfire.  Let's get this over with."  The scroll
made an unwelcome bulge through his jacket.

    They pushed their way through the throng, catching snatches of
conversation, and the smell of burning turkey oak and hot-dogs.
Dedham was on a makeshift stage, and was dressed in Tudor court
costume, with some other people acting the part.  When he saw Matt
approach the stage, he beamed at them, and came to meet them stage
left.

    "Matthew, my dear fellow, so glad you came in time.  And you
brought the filthy murdering whore with you too, I see.  I trust she
has been comforting you in your wife's absence."

    Matt was beyond caring, but he told Mel to wait for him by the
churchyard.  There was no need for her to get upset.

    Dedham waved in a mock mediaeval flourish as she reuctantly
left.  "I can see it in your face, Matthew.  You're a beaten man.  A
weak helpless wretch here to bargain for his slut of a wife with a
scrap of parchment."

    Matt bristled.  "Drop it Dedham.  I'm not running any more.
Tell me where Liz is, and you can have your devil's contract."

    Dedham pointed a bony finger into Matt's shoulder.  "Why do you
care where she is?  She couldn't even look after your little boy.
She let your son die, Matthew.  She's little better than that other
murdering slut you just bedded."

    Matt waited it out while Dedham continued.  "And maybe you
don't want a woman anyway.  Always preferred a nice stiff one didn't
you?"  He winked his exaggerated wink.  "Maybe you're still running.
I think you liked it that way."

    Matt shook his head, but he was shaking.  Dedham was trying to
provoke him, and every sinew wanted to beat on that grotesque
grinning face.  He had to get away before Dedham got what he so
obviously wanted.

    "I was going to hand over this bloody thing."  He took out the
grimoire.  "But you can stick it. I'll find out your name if it's the
last thing I do."

    Dedham winked again, and Matt's mind raced.  A thought came
back to him.  Something Dedham had said the very first day they met.
We mustn't let the affairs of our predecessors affect our own plans,
eh?  Why had he thought of that?  It was important.

    He pointed at Dedham as if he was about to make a cutting
comeback, but his mind was already several moves ahead in the chess
game.  "You'll see.  I'm not done yet."

    Dedham shrugged.  "Hurry back.  We burn the effagy at nine.  I
wouldn't want you to miss that."

    Matt turned and walked back through the fair.  Did he  mean
Liz?  Was he threatening to burn Liz?  He hoped he was just getting
jumpy.

    Dedham shouted after him.  "Prithee, my dear fellow, prithee!
We're going to burn the witch"

* * * * *

    He could hardly get the key in the lock.  Mel could sense his
excitement, the growing sense of sureness that he was on the right
track.

    "What have you found out?  What did we miss?"

    Matt finally found the keyhole, and a double turn later they
were inside.  "It was something Dedham said to me the first day we
met.  We mustn't let the affairs of our predecessors affect our own
plans.  I didn't understand what he meant then."

    "Of course.  The shop.  You might not have Dedham's papers
here, but Mr. Adams probably handled the sale of the shop."

    "Exactly.  Title deeds, Feu duties, something that required
Dedham to put down his real name.  Quickly,  see if you can find a
folder for the village shop."

    Mel sighed.  "There is one, I found it earlier."  She went
straight to one of the wooden cabinets and pulled out a buff paper
wallet.  "Empty, I'm afraid."

    Matt groaned.  "Damn old Adams and his filing system!"  He
slumped to the chair and put his head in his hands.

    Mel was thinking.  "Wait a minute, maybe it's filed under the
previous owner's name.  If only I could remember what his name was."

    Matt clicked his fingers.  "It wasn't Grimm by any chance?"
The sandwich boards in the back shop.  Mel's grin was enough to send
him to one of the metal filing cabinets.  After the searching they
had done earlier, he felt he could have put his hand on any file.

    "Here it is... Tobias Grimm.  Divorce papers.  Where is it!"
He threw away each document as he came to it.  "Sale of Chattals Act.
Here it is!  Old Grimm used this law practise to sell his shop to
Dedham!"

    He spread the papers out under the green banker's lamp.  They
both scanned down the papers, and looked at each other as they read
the name of the person that Grimm had sold his village shop to.

    Mel was first to recover.  "Pol Bruniere.  Sounds a bit Low
Countries.  Isn't Pol an Irish name?"

    Matt shrugged.  "Or Scandinavian.  It just seems so...
ordinary."

    "I suppose he must have been an ordinary man, before he sold
his soul to the devil."

    Matt nodded absently.  Now he had his real name, he had the
power to stop the Tabotan.  It made him feel weak instead of strong.
His throat was dry, and just one drink would steady him...

    Mel began to drag him.  "Come on.  Let's just do it, Matt.  'If
you won't then I will."

    She continued to drag him by the arm, and they left the office
unlocked and made their way back towards the green.

    Mel had a sparkle in her eye.  "What did your university friend
say would happen to the beast when you utter his name?  Does he turn
to dust or vanish, or something?"

    Matt didn't know.  Guy hadn't said.  He was finding it
difficult to think of Dedham as a beast.  Somehow, having his real
human name made him seem less supernatural than he had been before.
Matt almost felt sorry for him.  Here he was, about  to be destroyed.

    The crowds were gathered around the bonfire as they got there.
Mel pushed through to the front with Matthew in her wake.  All
feelings  of pity for Dedham slipped away when he saw the evil goblin
parading Liz on the stage.  She was dressed in period costume and was
bound with ropes.  Dedham was throwing questions at the crowd.

    "Shall we burn the witch?"  The crowd shouted and hissed.

    Matt pushed to the front.  "The game is up, Tabotan.  I know
your name."

    The crowd fell to silence.  Something in the air seemed to tell
them that something more than play-acting was at work here.  They
backed off, leaving Matthew in front of the stage.  If he had
expected Dedham to crumble at the news, he was to be disappointed.

    "Go on then, you drunken fool.  You know my name."  His tone
was mocking.  "What a clever fellow.  But do you have the courage,
Matthew?  That's the hardest part.  Or will you run."

    Matt swallowed to soothe his weeping throat.  He risked a
glance at Liz, who was still entranced on the stage.  Something was
wrong with all of this.  Dedham should be terrified.

    Mel squeezed his arm.  "Go on, Matt.  Say it, before I do it."

    Matt took the grimoire from his pocket, and unfurled it.  The
silence of the crowd made him feel self-conscious.  He was suddenly
aware of the absurdity of his expectations.  What if he was wrong?

    "Your real name is... Pol."  He swallowed.  "Pol Bruniere."  He
sighed and closed his eyes as the final syllable left his lips.

    He opened them again.  Dedham was still there, and he was
smiling.  Matt glanced around, but nothing appeared to have changed.

    But his first impression had been too swiftly taken.  The
people around him seemed to sag under the weight of something.  Each
face around him seemed to betray a hidden burden that he hadn't
noticed before.

    He looked at Dedham.  "What have you done to them?"

    "I have done nothing, my dear Matthew.  And please believe me,
I am truly sorry."  He jumped down from the stage in a way
unreasonable for a man of his age.  Of all the people there, only
Dedham seemed whole and clean.

    Matt held out the grimoire absently.  "Take this, I just want
it to be over."

    Dedham shook his head.  "You take care of that now."  The
signature read : Matthew Moore.

* * * * *

    The gravestones in the Saxon churchyard leaned comfortably at
various angles.  The Tudor beams were authentic, not stockbroker.
Above all, the peace and quiet was just what he needed.  As he stood
at the window, looking across the village, he realized he had come
home at last.  The bell on the office door rang.  Newcomers to the
village.  And a sackload of dreams for a man like him to play with...