The Girl From World’s End

Outside the door a cruel silvery world shimmered with icicles cascading down from the roof ends but she was too tired to wonder at the beauty of it all. She wanted to be home with Gran in Cragside kitchen, back with Carrie making faces, back sneaking titbits to Jet under the table.

It was melting, though. There were drips plopping from the hole in the roof, but no other sound. Then she heard the faint bark of dogs in the distance. Her heart thumped with relief. Someone was out there searching for her.

‘I’m here, over here!’ she squeaked, but her voice was too quiet. She couldn’t open the door for the weight of snow and she was desperate. What would the Scouts do now?

Uncle George’s book had served her well so far. There was a chapter on camping and sending signals, but she’d skipped that bit. If she was high up perhaps they would see her smoke.

Mirren piled on more laths. The only thing to hand was her new winter coat and she was in enough trouble as it was, so she grabbed a smelly sack and tried wafting it over the flames but it caught alight and she had to throw it onto the fire. Perhaps the blue smoke might be visible.

She sat down, exhausted and tearful. Come on old house, she prayed, help me one more time and I promise, on my blue temperance badge, I’ll pay you back.

There was always the hope that the kindred spirits who had once lived here would come to her rescue. She opened the one working shutter and yelled until she was puce and dizzy.

Then a tall boy in a peaked tweed cap, carrying a proddy stick, climbed over a drift and waved.

‘She’s here! Over here! Now then, young Miriam, let’s be having you,’ smiled a pair of dark brown eyes. She’d never seen him before in the village. He was about fourteen.

‘Who are you?’

‘Jack Sowerby, from The Fleece. You must be wrong in the head to go gallivanting up World’s End…’

‘It wasn’t snowing when I left,’ she answered back. No wonder she’d never seen him. Yewells didn’t go in pubs. They were Satan’s houses. ‘Anyway, the house found me and kept me safe.’

Her rescuer didn’t seem interested in her explanation but kept on whistling and shouting.

‘She’s alive, up here!’ he called, and suddenly there were dogs sniffing at her, faces peering under sack hoods with burning cheeks, and she was pulled through the window to safety.

‘So you spent the night at World’s End,’ laughed Uncle Tom, shoving in her hand a flask of hot soup, which burned her throat. ‘Sip it slowly. You’re a lucky blighter to find this ruin and hole up like a lost sheep. Happen you’re a Yewell through and through. Now, young lady, don’t you ever do such a daft thing again. You have to treat these hills with respect or they’ll take your fingers off in a few hours and your life by nightfall. Mam and Dad are going mad with worry at Cragside. Don’t you go putting lives at risk again…silly mutt!’ Uncle Tom stared at her with cold eyes and she cried.

‘Now what’ve I said?’ he muttered. ‘Don’t take on. Drink yer soup.’

It was creamy broth with bits of meat and veg in it, the most wonderful soup in the world at that moment, but she still felt dizzy and floppy.

Uncle Tom had never shouted at her before. The lad, Jack, peered in through the window. ‘She’s got a fire going…She’s canny enough, Tom, to think of that.’ He turned to her with smiling eyes. ‘I reckon we’ve got another Miriam o’ the Dale here. How did you think all this up?’

‘I read Uncle George’s book.’ At least Jack Sowerby didn’t think she was stupid. ‘I tried to do smoke signals but it didn’t work.’

‘That’s grand. They’ll be right proud of you when they find out,’ he said, but Uncle Tom was scowling.

‘No they won’t. She’s for it when she gets back, if the look on my mam’s face is anything to go by. She’s lost us a day’s work.’

‘The snow did that for you. We can’t blame her for a blizzard. The poor kid’s half starved. Do you want a piggyback?’ Jack offered.

But Mirren shook her head. ‘No thank you, I’ll walk. I’ve caused enough bother. I don’t suppose you’ve done anything as daft as me?’ she asked them both.

Uncle Tom suddenly roared. ‘His mam says Jack ran away on the first day at school ’cos he couldn’t count up the cardboard pennies so he hid in the cellar of the pub and she and Wilf were run ragged trying to find him.’ He lifted her up as she was struggling and her legs had turned to jelly. He carried her down to the waiting sled, to the warmth of a horse steaming, then homewards over the snow.

It was a cold crisp morning with a weak winter sun, but the journey down was like bumping over ice and the poor horse slithered. How could she have wandered so far uphill–and to the end of the world, they said?

She turned to say goodbye to her house but it had already disappeared from view, hidden and secret once more. One day she must come back and thank it properly.

They were all lined up waiting in the kitchen as she was carried in and inspected for frostbite. Someone had blasted off a gun to give notice that she was safe. Two blasts and it would have meant she was a goner, so Carrie whispered.

‘You’ve given us such a fright, Miriam. Whatever were you thinking off?’ said Granny, rubbing her dry with a towel.

‘Not now, Adey,’ said Grandpa Joe. ‘She’s frozen through. Get her in that zinc tub and warmed up. Plenty of time for a sermon when she’s come to. Carrie can see to it.’

Soon Mirren was soaking in the warm tub, her hands and toes tingling, and then Carrie was towelling her dry.

‘Weren’t you scared all alone at World’s End?’ she asked.

‘I wasn’t alone. There were animals sheltering in there, and when the fire was lit, I heard—’

‘They say that ruin is haunted. You wouldn’t catch me up there for love nor money,’ Carrie added.

‘It’s a kind place. I didn’t see anyone. The walls are thick and warm.’

‘You’re a braver lass than me…World’s End is unlucky for some. That’s why it’s been left. It belonged to one of yours years back. They said his wife was a witch but I never believed it…your great-granny, Sukie Yewell. She never went to church. They say…but I shouldn’t be putting ideas in your head. You’ve had a lucky escape. We thought you were a goner. The snow’s taken many a soul off these moors. They know about you skipping school, by the way. I had to tell them.’

‘That’s all right,’ said Mirren, splashing the water with her foot. Carrie was wrong. World’s End was a kind house. It had sheltered her and saved her life. Now she must get dressed and face the grilling downstairs.

Soon everyone in Windebank knew the child was safe, found in the old ruin at World’s End. George Thursby, the postman, brought an update straight from Cragside lane end, telling Miss Halstead how the town child was found. Soon it passed from cottage to shop and pub that Mirren Gilchrist was a truant from school on account of her beating by Mr Burrows. He was called by the managers to account for such rumours and reprimanded for taking whisky bottles into school. Only his war record prevented his dismissal. His wife went to her mother’s on account of her health. The village was agog at the gossip, but Mirren was to know nothing of all this.

She was trying to be extra good for her grandparents, keeping her head down, waiting for the moment when she would be summoned to make an account of her behaviour. And so near to Christmas too.

‘Why does nobody like World’s End?’ she asked at the dinner table.

‘Don’t talk with your mouth full, child,’ said Gran. ‘I don’t know.’

‘Carrie said it’s haunted by a witch,’ she replied.

‘Nonsense, she’s making a cake out of a biscuit again. There’s nothing wrong with that place that a bit of repair wouldn’t sort out but it’s too far out to be much use to us, especially in winter. You did well to find it.’

‘It found me, I think. Can we mend it?’

‘Of course not, lass. There’s no money for that sort of whimsy.’

Grandpa was taking his tea into his study to do his sermon for the Christmas carol concert. Being a preacher was important and he was not to be disturbed when she passed his door.

Carrie began brushing Mirren’s hair out. It crackled on the brush.

‘Ouch!’ she cried as the lugs were combed out.

‘We should be paddling your backside with that brush, young lady, not pampering your vanity. Disobellience in one so young is a black mark. Truanting is what boys do, not nice girls,’ said Gran.

‘She’s learned her lesson, haven’t you?’ said Carrie, pulling Mirren’s hair so she nodded meekly.

‘Spare the rod, spoil the child, the Good Book says,’ sniffed Gran.