The Dark Inside by Rupert Wallis Page B

bringing yer wife back to the world neither.’
    After Billy had left, Cook sat for a long time, pondering what he believed to be true about the world and what he did not. About Webster. And about the old woman too.
    Eventually, James awoke and Cook described everything Billy had told him. When he finished, the boy bowed his head.
    ‘I’m sorry. We didn’t mean for this to happen. We should never have stayed with you.’
    ‘Do you really believe that Webster was attacked by something most people think belongs in stories?’
    ‘Don’t you?’
    Cook sighed and shook his head. James looked away and said nothing.
    ‘What does he remember about that night in the park?’ asked Cook.
    ‘Not much.’
    ‘I think he only believes he was attacked by something terrifying because that’s what these people want him to believe.’
    James tried moving his wrists because they were sore. The washing line creaked. His mind ticked over.
    And over.
    ‘No,’ he said eventually, shaking his head. ‘He must have been attacked. There are two scars on his back. Claw marks. I’ve seen them.’
    Cook looked round the room and nodded over at the small round table beside the window. ‘See that newspaper? The local one?’
    James nodded.
    ‘Have a look at the whole of the front page,’ Cook said to him.
    James rocked back and forth and lurched up off the sofa. He worked his way over to the table, and bent down over the newspaper. A headline ran across the lower section of the page:
    Third Knife Attack In Local Park This Month
    He read the whole article, and then he shuffled back to Cook and sat down on the sofa.
    ‘Last night,’ he said eventually, ‘what you said about war. Can it change people enough to make them believe in things that aren’t true?’
    ‘I think it probably can, yes.’
    ‘Can they ever change back?’
    But Cook didn’t know what to say.
    James touched his face and felt the tiny bumps of the scars on his cheeks, and remembered how Webster had used the ointment to heal him.
    ‘I’ve seen things that don’t make sense,’ he said, ‘but they were definitely real. What about the old woman? The things she’s done to us?’
    Cook shook his head.
    ‘I don’t know how to explain what she’s done or the things you say you’ve seen,’ he said.
    James tried not to think about anything because it was too confusing to know what to believe or what he wished to be true for Webster. So he ran his eyes round the living room, over the
furniture and the walls and the windows, happy just to see things for what they were.
    Then something occurred to him.
    ‘It doesn’t matter what
we
believe, does it?’ he said.
    Cook thought about that. And then he nodded. ‘You mean as long as Webster finds the person he thinks attacked him then he can cure himself by forgiving them, and hang whatever we
think.’
    ‘Yes,’ said James. ‘As long as he forgives them like the vicar told us. Then the travellers wouldn’t want him any more. Not if Webster tells them he’s cured.
They’d leave us all alone.’ James sighed and closed his eyes, trying not to think too hard about what he might be saying about Webster.
    Cook could see the tiny pulse in the boy’s throat. All he could think about was how, when he had been young, the rest of the world had always taken care of itself. But now, it seemed to
him, children were plugged directly into everything in it, the evil as well as the good. He remembered what Webster had said about James, that his stepfather beat him. That James and Webster were
friends because the boy had no one else.
    He cleared his throat. ‘Webster’s looking for me,’ he said quietly. James sat up and stared at him. Cook could see himself in the black marble stones of the boy’s eyes.
‘I’m the one Webster needs to forgive. You have to tell him.’
    ‘It doesn’t matter if I believe you or not, does it?’ James whispered.
    ‘No.’
    And James took a deep breath and nodded.
    ‘OK then.’ And he