All Hallows' Eve by M.J. Trow Page A

Eve, wouldn’t you say?’ Kit Marlowe liked to keep to the niceties of conversation, even when an answer to his question was unlikely. On this occasion, he was pleased to hear a grunted assent. And it
was
a lovely night. It was hard to believe that in a very few hours it would be November. He was wearing a cloak but had thrown it over his shoulder; he might need it later on his way home, but, here in the lee of the theatre and with the musty warmth billowing up from Mr Sackerson’s home, he was comfortably warm without it.
    Marlowe had brought some food to share. It wasn’t polite for a guest to arrive empty handed and tonight he had a bag of apples. They were the last of the crop to be picked from the tree in Francis Walsingham’s courtyard and he never left there in the autumn days without having a bag of them pressed into his hand by the cook. They were small but sweet, crisp and juicy. He bit into one now and threw one to his host, who fielded it deftly and ate it in one mouthful, juice flying.
    Marlowe nodded. ‘They
are
good, aren’t they?’ he said. ‘They keep well through the winter, too, but they are never as nice as on All Hallows. Once Old Nick has breathed on them, they always have that musty taste.’
    He didn’t believe in much, in neither God nor the Devil, but there were some stories just too good to let go. He had lain awake in his little room in Canterbury for many an All Hallows’ Eve, listening for the brush of a foot on the tiles above his head as the witches zoomed through the sky; for the clip of a cloven hoof on the paving in the garden below. His mother always sent her brood to bed early on that night, ostensibly because the night was cold, in reality because the only safe place for her chicks was tucked up in their beds. Children were particularly vulnerable on the night when the dead walked and witches flew. She herself, she told anyone who would listen, had seen the shade of her grandmother every year on this night. She came with tales of doom and destruction which, so far and with the help of amulets and charms, Mistress Marley had managed to keep at bay.
    Marlowe had a dark imagination. It had plagued him as a boy but it was making his reputation now. And on autumn nights – and in particular
this
autumn night – his own company and that of the moth-eaten, toothless Mr Sackerson, suited his mood perfectly. Looking over the wall, all he could see was blackness. Mr Sackerson was clearly bedding himself down for the night; snufflings and shufflings of straw bedding came up from the gloom, along with the smell peculiar to him. It was frowsty and feral, but there was no harm in it.
    Marlowe felt, with a pricking of his thumbs, someone behind him. A soft voice sounded in his ear, but it had no breath with it. There was none of the warmth on his back that a human soul would bring. He didn’t look round. His imagination may be dark, but it was possible to have too much of a bad thing.
    â€˜Tell me a story, Kit,’ the voice said. ‘I’m lonely.’
    â€˜Who are you?’
    The voice sounded odd, disembodied and airless. No lung had compressed that sound up through a throat. There was no blood in it, just the tunes of the air.
    â€˜You don’t know me?’ The voice sounded crestfallen.
    â€˜Umm … I believe we’ve met,’ Marlowe felt that politeness might be a wise idea. This voice might not be quite human, but his mother’s stories on this night years ago had left their mark.
    The voice sounded brighter. ‘Indeed we have,’ it said. ‘You know me and many of my sisters. They send their love, by the way. They told me not to forget that.’
    Sisters. And quite a few, by the sound of it. He racked his brains but couldn’t think of any family he knew with a lot of sisters in it. ‘Ah, yes. Lovely girls. It’s all coming back to me now …’
    Down in the darkness, Mr