The Fetch by Robert Holdstock

middle of the field. ‘Do you know which dog I’m talking about?’
    ‘The dog from the earthfall,’ Susan said softly. She was frowning, clearly disturbed by the thought.
    ‘I made drawings of the dog-shrine – and the dog itself. Do you remember? I wonder if Michael ever looked at those pictures.’
    ‘I don’t know. What areyou saying? That he’s fantasizing about a dog in a drawing you made?’
    ‘It’s possible. Either that or the hound’s spirit is back among the remains of its last resting place.’
    Shivering, Susan said, ‘I don’t want to think about it.’ Then with a pointed glance, she added, ‘But it’s nice to see you take a bit of interest in the boy for a change …’
    ‘Don’t start on me now. Not now. Please?’
    ‘Your interest in him has cheered him up. He’s almost a changed lad.’
    ‘It’s
him
who usually doesn’t talk to
me
.’
    Susan’s laugh was a cutting declaration of her disbelief that he could lie so blatantly. ‘Talking is a two-way process, Rick. The boy misses you!’
    She walked on quickly. Richard ambled after her, hands in pockets, wolf-girl in right hand, comforting, one question in his head, nagging.
    The gruesome remains of the dog had come from the earth-mass which had tried to kill Michael. That earth-mass had come from
somewhere
, and Michael had been its focus. It had been a part of a haunting that seemed, now, to have disappeared.
    The dog had been there, though. Could Michael, as an infant, have been aware of the dead hound?
    And even if
that
was true …
    Who was Chalk Boy?

ELEVEN
    Chalk Boyusually played with him in the pit, but he was in the room now, darting through the darkness and laughing.
    Michael laughed too, but the sound was nervous. He felt slightly scared as he sat up towards the top of his bed, and drew his feet below him. He folded his arms and leaned forward, shivering slightly despite his pyjamas. The chalk-painted shape danced and ran about the shelves.
    ‘Look at that. Oh, look at that!’
    Excited at finding picture books. Flipping the pages rapidly, then stopping in the darkness and gasping with sheer delight. ‘Oh, look at this. Look at this.’
    Michael could see the chalk streaks, like slices of moonlight. Through the eerie white, though, the darkness of Chalk Boy was that same scary black, the depthlessness, the void where the boy should have been. It was something that Michael didn’t like. He didn’t like looking into that emptiness. It made him dizzy. Chalk Boy had no eyes, not that Michael had ever seen. He was just a shadow shape. He watched from the beach where he lived, staring from the tunnel, then playing, and calling for his dog.
    He shouldn’t be in the bedroom. He should be in the castle by the sea, at the end of the tunnel.
    Again, Michael laughed nervously, and watched as Chalk Boy rifled through the drawersof his clothes chest, finding fossils. ‘Look at this! Oh, look at this!’
    Fossils, books, photographs, toys, dolls, colourful shirts, Chalk Boy found them, marvelled at them, discarded them, moving fleetly around the room, sometimes coming close to Michael, stopping, like an elf, like a creature from the sea, coming close, then pausing to look. The stink of sea was strong. Salt stink, seaweedy.
    ‘Look at this! Look at this!’ Chalk Boy thrilled. He had found a pile of comics, turning through the pages so fast that they seemed a blur.
    Michael eased himself off the bed and went to the door, opening it and peering out into the darkness of the landing. Chalk Boy hovered behind him.
    ‘Look at that! Oh, look at
that!
’ Chalk Boy had found the small, red-clay doll that his mother had given him for his second birthday. Hungarian magic, she had said, and protection against night spirits.
    ‘Sssh!’ Michael closed the door again, turned and raised a finger to his lips. It was three in the morning according to the clock on the landing. Chalk Boy peered into the house, but then darted back into the room,