The Boy Beyond

There was only one rule on Home Farm: never go beyond the fence at the foot of the garden.

Lily did her best to be good, although she could never really see the point. It was just a fence, much the same as all the others on the farm, half falling apart with wear and tear. There were just a few wooden posts and broken coils of wire, half lost in the rising tangles of branches and ivy from the field on the other side.

‘Shouldn’t we fix it?’ she’d asked her father once.

Her father had given her a dark look, and his voice had sounded almost scared. But that couldn’t be right – he wasn’t scared of anything.

‘You never even go near that fence,’ he’d said. ‘Promise me.’

She’d hesitated, only for a moment, but that had been enough for some madness to take hold of him. He’d gripped her roughly by the shoulders in a way he’d never done before, and almost shouted, ‘Promise me!’

So she’d promised. What else could she do? Her father had been perfectly normal again after that, but she’d never forgotten the look in his eyes.

Lily couldn’t bring herself to even glance in the fence’s direction ever since. She still didn’t really know how, or why, but somehow it was Bad. That was enough.

After a while she barely even thought about it. The fence, and the bottom of the garden, simply faded into the background – something that was there, in the same way the sky was there.

But just as she still noticed the sky sometimes – if it rained, for instance, or it was a particularly beautiful day – in the same way, sometimes she would sense the fence’s presence. It would feel heavy for a moment, almost like it was pulling her towards it.

It was rare, and whenever something like that happened Lily would simply run away, hiding in the house, under the covers or locking the door until the feeling ebbed away.

But she could never shake it off entirely.

There were bigger things to think about though, grown up things that seemed far more important than a silly old fence.

Mother and father were worried, Lily could tell. The last few harvests had been poor, and the weather this year had been just as unkind. There had been too many frosts and not enough rain. And now the days were hot, far too hot – the kind of hot that made the soil so dry it cracked apart.

There was nothing Lily liked more in this kind of weather than to find some shade to lie in or to go for a swim in the river, but there was work to do.

The only hope for the harvest was to make sure the crops somehow got enough water, so Lily joined her parents in fetching buckets from the river and carrying them up to the fields. It was tiring work, and Lily couldn’t carry as much as her mother or father, but little by little they did their best.

More and more of the fields were drying out, but between them Lily, mother and father had managed to keep a few small corners alive.

It was hard work, and in the blazing sun Lily grew tired more quickly than normal. By midday she was no longer able to keep up with her parents, even with her smaller bucket, but that was okay. She just carried on at her own pace.

Her arms were aching, so she paused, just for a moment, and put the bucket down on the path to rest.

With a loud clatter, the bucket tumbled onto its side and began to roll away, clattering down the hill and trailing the last of its water as it went.

There was nothing for it – Lily chased after the bucket, doing everything she could to catch it and stop it in its tracks. But it was too fast, and Lily was too tired. Before long, the bucket had rolled completely out of sight.

Lily stumbled to a halt. Her breaths were heavy, and she could feel a strange prickling sensation running over her skin.

It was the fence. She’d run all the way to the bottom of the garden, and there it was, right in front of her.

It looked as overgrown as ever. The drought that was starving their crops had done nothing to stop the ivy here. Everything was exactly the same as it always was.

There was no sign of the bucket.

She wanted to keep going and find it, of course she did, but her father’s words echoed loudly in her head:

‘You never even go near that fence.’

Reluctantly, Lily turned to climb back up the garden. She could find another bucket to use.

‘Hello?’ said a voice.

Lilly froze. It was a boy’s voice, a perfectly ordinary-sounding boy’s voice. But it was coming from the other side of the fence.

‘Hello?’ he said again. ‘Is this your bucket?’

Against her better judgement, Lily turned around.

Sure enough, there was her bucket, held above the fence by a small skinny hand. The hand belonged to a boy about the same age as she was, no older than nine, with a dirty face and hair that looked as though it had never seen a comb in its life.

He was smiling nervously.

‘Yes,’ said Lily with as much haughtiness as she could muster. ‘Give it back.’

‘Why?’ said the boy.

‘It’s mine.’

‘Not anymore.’ The boy grinned. ‘Finders keepers.’

Lily glared at him. She should still be scared, she knew, but the boy was grinning that annoying grin, holding her bucket in his hand. More than anything, she was starting to feel annoyed.

‘It doesn’t work like that,’ she said.

‘Why not?’ said the boy. ‘Come and get it if you want it so much.’

Lily wanted to. Oh how she wanted to. But her father’s voice was still all too clear in the back of her mind.

‘I can’t,’ she said.

He laughed. It wasn’t a particularly nice laugh.

‘Scared?’

She scowled. ‘No.’

‘Come and take it then.’

‘I’m not allowed.’

He really laughed at that. ‘Of course you are.’

Lily shook her head, to convince herself as much as anything.

‘What are you doing there?’ she demanded. ‘It’s forbidden.’

The boy shrugged. ‘I live here, don’t I?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Lily crossly. ‘Do you?’

‘Yep.’

‘Where?’

There was no house in the field. Now she was finally able to look closer, there wasn’t much of anything really. Just a tangle of overgrown weeds and grass, with a lonely pear tree in the centre.

The boy pointed at the tree. ‘There.’

‘You live in a tree?’

He shrugged again. ‘Sort of.’

‘Don’t you get cold?’

‘Not really. Want to see?’

He smiled, a much nicer smile this time, and held out his hand.

Now she was here, Lily didn’t see what was so scary. It was just a field. This boy was a little strange, but he didn’t exactly seem dangerous.

Even so, she shook her head. There was one rule. Only one rule. There must be a reason.

‘Please?’ said the boy in a sad voice. ‘No one visits me anymore.’

Lily stared at him. ‘You live by yourself? Where are your parents?’

The boy looked confused. ‘Don’t have any.’

‘You must have had parents once, though.’

‘Nope,’ he said. ‘Just me.’

Lily paused to think. The boy looked okay, if a bit weird, but it wasn’t safe for him to be out here all by himself.

‘I think I should go and get my dad,’ she decided.

‘No,’ said the boy sharply. ‘You can’t.’

There was something strange in his voice. A kind of desperation.

‘Why not?’

‘He doesn’t like me.’

‘You know my dad?’ she asked suspiciously.

The boy nodded. ‘He used to visit me.’

‘No he didn’t,’ said Lily. ‘You’re lying.’

‘Did too.’ The strange, sad look crossed his face again. ‘Lots of people used to visit me.’

‘No they didn’t,’ said Lily. ‘Why would anyone want to visit you?’

‘They brought me presents. They thought it was good luck.’

She laughed. ‘No one comes down here. I’ve never seen anyone come down here. It’s forbidden.’

The boy’s lip quivered. He genuinely looked as if he was about to cry.

‘You’re mean,’ he said. ‘You’re a mean nasty little girl.’

‘No I’m not,’ she shot back. ‘You’re mean. You stole my bucket.’

The boy growled and scrunched up his face so that it was ugly and red. ‘Have the stupid bucket!’

Lily threw her arms up and ducked just in time. The bucket flew over her head, narrowly missing where her nose had been just seconds before, and landed on the dry dust.

‘Go away!’ shouted the boy. ‘Go away and leave me like everyone else!’

Lily snatched up the bucket and began to stalk huffily up the hill, but after a few steps she hesitated. There was a strange, whining sound coming from behind her. She glanced back, and sure enough the boy was sobbing, huge angry tears streaming down his red face.

‘Don’t cry,’ she said. ‘You’re not a baby.’

Even if he did look like one, she thought.

The boy glared at her with bloodshot eyes.

‘You try it,’ he sobbed. ‘You try being all by yourself with no one to talk to.’

Lily felt a stab of pity. He was strange, dirty and annoying, but he had no parents after all. Everybody needed somebody.

‘I’ll visit you if you like,’ she offered magnanimously.

‘You – you will?’ sniffed the boy.

‘Yes. But you have to stop acting like a baby.’

‘Will you bring me presents?’

‘No. You’re too old for presents.’

‘Am not,’ said the boy, wiping his nose messily down his bare arm. ‘Everybody used to bring me gifts.’

‘What kind of gifts?’

‘All kinds,’ said the boy happily. His eyes were sparkling with excitement now, all tears forgotten. ‘Trinkets, and letters, and stones with funny holes through them, and food.’

‘People just brought you things?’ said Lily, incredulous.

The boy nodded. ‘They left them for me. Under the pear tree.’

He pointed to the lonely shape behind him. Lily squinted towards it.

‘I can’t go in,’ she said. ‘But I can meet you here sometimes If you like.’

‘Everyone else came in,’ said the boy sulkily.

‘I won’t,’ said Lily. ‘Do you want someone to talk to or not?’

He nodded eagerly. ‘Will you bring me gifts?’

‘Maybe. Sometimes, if you’re nice.’

‘I’ll be nice,’ he promised. ‘If you bring me presents, you’ll have lots of good luck. That’s how it works.’

‘Okay,’ said Lily. ‘But only sometimes.’

She turned to leave, but then a thought crossed her mind. She held out the bucket.

‘Here,’ she said. ‘Your first gift.’

They boy stared at it in shock, as though not daring to believe she was really offering it to him. He reached out tentatively.

‘Really?’

‘Really.’

The boy took it. He stared at it for a moment, and then a big grin broke over his face.

‘Thank you Lily,’ he said.

‘Wait, how do you know my -?’

But just like that, the boy was gone. He disappeared behind the fence, and though she craned and searched, Lily could make out no sign of him.

By the time she made it back up the hill, storm clouds were rolling in. Her father bundled her into her house quickly, and then her mother locked the door and torrents or rain began to plunge from the sky.

Her father stared out of the window into the fields.

‘Rain,’ he said, laughing and hugging Lily close. ‘Harvest might be saved after all.’

‘Yes,’ said her mother, smiling at Lily. ‘Finally some good luck.’