'Blackberry Time'

This story is a pendant to an M.R. James story, and therefore does not stand alone. Instead Peter Bell offers a modern-ish sequel to a story of English folk horror - something Dr James pioneered and to some extent defined. Revenants & Maledictions is subtitled Ten Tales of the Uncanny, but of the stories I've read so far at least half could qualify as folk horror.

The narrator recalls holidays with his aunts when they would go blackberry picking - something I also recall with nostalgic pleasure. Bell describes lovingly the joys of scoffing the berries as you made your way along the hedgerows, and the way your hands would end up scratched and bloody from the thorns of the wayside bushes. Then of course there were the tarts and the jams...

But this is not a memoir! Because he was an only child our protagonist made friends with Freda, the daughter of an eccentric single mother. Freda makes them blood brother and sister, but there are things about the girl's life that the boy cannot know. He only calls upon her once at home, and there he sees her mother, Mrs Devlin, engaged in some kind of ritual. The woman sees him, and her gaze terrifies the boy, who flees.

Things come to a head in a summer heatwave when the children see a strange man in a robe, wearing a medallion and wielding some kind of axe. They sneak away, but he catches sight of them. Then, when the children are atop a hill rich in legend, a terrifying lightning storm separates the narrator from his friend. He never sees Freda again.

Or does he? There is a coda to the story featuring a painting of blackberry pickers in a gallery. The narrator, now an adult, encounters a strange woman with hair falling over one side of her face. A glimpse of a disfigurement raises several possibilities.

I'm not entirely sure what is going on in this story, but it's memorable for both its detail and the overall feel of those childhood summers. And I'm typing this as tremendous summer heat withers all - perhaps even the blackberry hedges.

More from this collection soon. The next one has an interesting title...