Gianfranco Mancini’s Reviews > Withered Hill > Status Update

Two weeks after Beltane, Sophie takes a walk in the warm May sunshine down to the farms crouched on the inside of the woods. Up on Peter O’Keeffe’s top field, there stands a new scarecrow. Sophie has avoided it for the past fortnight, but now she feels ready.

The outside world came into Withered Hill infrequently, but it did come. And it had learned, somewhere along the way, to not question what went on in Withered Hill, or the ways of its people. Even the protestations of a pretty young woman that she was being held in the village against her will.

You weren’t supposed to do that, she’d read somewhere. In their death throes, they somehow sent out a message to all the other cockroaches, which brought them running. She imagined a silent, psychic cry for help, and the other insects gathering around their fallen comrade, heads bowed in prayer. Wincing, Sophie gathered the crushed remains up in a wad of kitchen roll and threw them in the bin.

She knows this is wrong. She does not belong here. She walked into this village, this Withered Hill, naked and dirty and with no idea who she is or what she’s doing here. And they think it’s the most normal thing in the world, and that she is to stay here. As long as it takes. Sophie turns towards the door and runs.

‘What are these for?’ ‘The festival tomorrow night.’ Sophie picks one of the masks up, rubbing her finger over the waxy crayon lines. ‘Festival? Wasn’t that a few weeks ago?’ Catherine laughs. ‘That was Midsummer. Tomorrow is Lammas. You’ll get used to it. We have a lot of festivals in Withered Hill.’

‘Where am I?’ says Sophie as Carol takes her hand and helps her to step out of the bath onto a mat. ‘I already told you, silly,’ says Carol with mock sternness. ‘Withered Hill. You’re in Withered Hill. Where you belong.’

On the front page is a picture of children enjoying themselves at a summer fun day, beneath which a headline sits uncomfortably about a paedophile being jailed. Not news from Withered Hill, of course; from the bigger villages and towns further along the valley. There is never any news from Withered Hill in the papers.

As I were going up Withered Hill With night-time coming soon I met a man under the trees Whiter than the moon He smiled at me and stroked my hair I were frit for my life He showed his teeth and smiled and said, ‘Owd Hob wants a wife’ Pennine Lancashire playground rhyme, circa nineteenth century