15th Aug 1992

Today was the first day she saw me. It was the day that began it all. It was the day she nearly died. I have so many dates memorised.
But there is no ‘I’ in this story yet.
There were the Ministers of Far Forest. How the girl, her family and all the other mysterious coincidences become related to these Ministers is something of fantasy, a whimsical judgement rained down upon us, and me in particular, by the forces of nature. For in Far Forest these Ministers lived, a strange and secretive cult of men, the existence of which was unknown by anyone outside their cult. Even their neighbours were unaware. The chosen village, this Far Forest, not a name made up by my imagination but a real place in the centre of England, hid them well. It was a small village with one shop, one pub called ‘The Plough’, and a lot of trees. It was in the heart of the woods the coven dwelled. So deep was there home in fact that they threatened the border of the Wyre Forest. From the windows of their stone cottage, deer ambled past oblivious of their human neighbours, for there were no fences or hedges keeping them out, surrounding the property. There wasn’t even a flowerbed, or a garden path, though vegetables sprouted here and there. The trees loomed and, in the summer, blackened the cottage under their leaves; in the winter, wet boughs continually dripped rain onto the roof so a steady, rhythmic beat accompanied the Ministers’ humming mourning. I know these things because I was once a Minister, in another life.
You see, there was a reason for the lack of fencing. Well, two actually. The first is that it would have cost money to pay someone to come along and build the fence or bury the hedges, and paying someone to do something you could do, and should do, yourself was against the doctrine of the Ministers. Everyone should be self-sufficient, self-reliant, only then can you call yourself worthy of living. (And here’s something I should mention now: they were Atheists with a capital A. It was like this; there is no God, there is only this, the now; the past is defunct and the future is uncertain; the present is all that matters, and what are you going to do? Watch a man building a fence in your garden or have the experience of building a fence yourself? You can sit on your arse being fed, watching tv, or you can stretch your muscles and grow your own food. Living in the now and being self-sufficient was all that mattered to the Ministers. Because of this, they mourn for society).
The second reason was simpler. They didn’t want to keep anyone out. All were welcome to be brainwashed, or killed.
They received no bills, no post. No electricity or water or gas. No one knew of their existence, so anyone who stumbled upon their quaint little cottage in the depths of Far Forest was either indoctrinated or murdered. They were selfish like that, and anyway, anyone coming to visit them wearing a suit, or jeans, or anything made of cotton or polyester, that they hadn’t made themselves, just didn’t deserve to live.
To give you an image of them in your head, imagine a small clearing just behind the house, no bigger then the width of an average street. The ground is flat, treeless, a rectangle of grass with a well in the centre and a narrow strip of dirt leading to it from the back door. It is rare that sunlight ever hits this area so the grass is limp and pale, despite the attempts of the Ministers.
The well itself is just a hole in the ground surrounded by rocks that are knee-high. A wooden bucket rests beside it. Sometimes it is full of rainwater.
A Minister comes out of the back door (you get a glimpse of a pale-plaster wall behind him as the door closes). He is wearing the skin of a sheep over his torso that drapes down around his bare feet. It is dyed black. On his head is a hood of fox-fur, also dyed black. He walks quietly to the well, draws water, then returns to the cottage. This time, you hear a quiet song reeked with desperation and sorrow as the door opens and closes.
That is the most you might see of them in one day. And they rarely travelled into social surroundings, for it hurt them too much. They mourned for those who were, as they saw it, already dead. And for the planet that was dying. We were beyond redemption they thought. Perhaps that’s why, in their despondency, they could kill with such indifference.


So, today was the first day she saw me, this time. Far Forest was also home to the Mayhews, and they knew nothing of the Ministers, or of me for that matter. It was the summer of 92, the holidays, and they were all set for days of lazing in the sun without a worry. There were five of them, Craig and Amy were the parents of Miranda, the oldest born in 85, and the twins Neil and Kyle born the year after.
They were your typically functional, nucleoid family; no teenagers yet to throw the ‘dys’ into the works. They lived in a 3-bed old-red-brick semi-detached house with green front and back gardens, interspersed with red-rose specks during the rosebush’s flowering season. A snail highway led to the front door. On this morning the path was slimy, a dewy mist bordering on light drizzle the conspirator. The sky was white. A ticking drip-drop fell from the open bottom of the roof’s drainpipe, the remnants of a passing storm that had clarified the air. The handle of a spade stabbed in the flowerbed was wet, and then the intruder grabbed it.
He looked younger then I remembered him. Mid-twenties at the latest. His brown hair was long to match his beard. He wore a long coat he’d evidently stolen from someone because it was man-made, and carried a sports bag with a tick on it. Something else he’d stolen.
He picked up the spade and squelched around to a side window. He wouldn’t have seen anyone if he looked in the window. There were no cars in the driveway. No lights or sounds due to the power cut.
He sneezed as though tortured by hay-fever, though the season of air so thick with pollen it deceived you into thinking it was yellow, had long since settled and left Far Forest. The adjacent field, seemingly always fallow, could be a minefield for any hay-fever sufferer.
I watched from safety, in a tree, with my ‘Power Rangers’ lunchbox. The tree was in the front garden of a house opposite the Mayhews’. As I watched, I munched on a chicken and stuffing sandwich that I’d made before setting out last night. Nothing settled my stomach like a chicken and stuffing sandwich. Perhaps it was one of those association foods. Mum’s homemade sage, mint and onion stuffing getting forked up the backside of a plump chicken. Me always wanting to help. Mum letting me and me getting my hands dirty, again.
I could see him quite clearly in the sight, that V at the end of the barrel.
My choice was simple. Kill the Minister in order to save the life of someone I will love, have loved, do love. Because this is the way it could go:

The Minister had been waiting all morning. Hell, it was still only seven. From down the road he’d watched as four people bundled sleepily into a car and drove off, leaving an empty house behind.
There were rich pickings to be had in these country houses. Sometimes they didn’t even lock their doors.
He made his way to the front and around the back. He was going to use the spade to smash the glass of the back door, but there was no need. It was unlocked.
Once inside he worked quickly – his eyes shot from drawer to drawer in the kitchen, assessing the most likely source of the treasure. He saw figurative X’s here and there. Which drawer would hold the documents – the account numbers, the pin codes – which drawer the knives in case of emergency? Can I see, or get to, the front door from here? His hands, independently, rummaged through drawers and scouted above the fridge and dresser cabinets. He didn’t stop to admire the Royal Doulton plates on the cabinet shelves, short in number now but extensive in years to come. Nor did he notice the photograph of Miranda on the wall.
A whole drawer of enveloped papers were tipped into his sports bag. He left a trail of muddy footprints as he entered the hallway.
The best loot was normally in the bedrooms so he headed for the stairs, glancing into the living room first as he passed the open door.
Amy Mayhew was standing there with a knife in her hand.
SHIT! Why did I drop the spade?!
The light from the window cast an almost Godly radiance about her. She wore a glowing white nightgown that trembled.
“Get the FUCK outta my house!” she screamed.
“Drop the knife.” He didn’t sound too assertive.
“Who do you think you are? GET OUT!”
“Drop – the – knife.” He dropped his bag and straightened his spine, and looked at her.
“I will not drop the knife,” she said with conviction as she took a step forward.
The Minister turned and ran for the kitchen, hearing Amy’s quiet foot-thumps chase him. He’d left all the drawers open and headed straight for the cutlery drawer. He withdrew a 6-inch blade and turned just in time to see Amy enter the kitchen.
Now they were equally armed.
“If you don’t get out,” started Amy, “I’m afraid I’m gonna have to shoot you.” The Minister stood there dumbstruck as she put her hand beneath the hem of her nightgown and reached up, revealing white knickers and a gun held by the elastic.

Perhaps if she hadn’t been so bold, or pulled the gun out sooner, she would have survived. But headstrong Amy just had to have it her way. This was her house and her belongings and she would put her life on the line to protect them.

“Drop the gun.”
“Why don’t you just stay there and put the knife down and shut up?” said Amy. She looked at the telephone connected to the wall and walked over towards it, while keeping one eye on the Minister. “You’re going to stay there and I’m going to call the police and then we’re going to go into the living room and wait for them, after you’ve put the knife down.”
He didn’t budge, just stared at her with penetrating eyes.
She lifted the gun from her silky holster and pointed it at him. “It’s loaded, I promise. Put the knife down.”
The look in his eyes was unflinching. He didn’t blink once as he stared at her, almost daring her to shoot.
“I won’t ask you again, put the knife down!” Amy hadn’t been as scared as she was at this moment. In the movies when you threaten someone with a gun they always do what you ask. What do you do when they’re uncooperative? Shoot them?
To prove the gun was loaded she shot at the floor. The gun blast echoed in their ears for seconds afterwards and disturbed the neighbours from sleep. The bullet caused an awful mess to the tiled floor.
Amy jumped considerably more than the Minister.
Then he closed his eyes and moved his hand, putting it and the knife inside the drawer. Cutlery clinked and rattled. As though taunting Amy to ask again, he kept his hand in the drawer. Whether he still held the knife Amy couldn’t see. He still had his eyes closed.
“Okay, now take your hand out and close the drawer.” She waited for him to obey. But he didn’t. Instead, he took the knife back out and thrust it into his belly with a chilling slapping sound, until only the handle stuck out. He released it and fell on his backside to the floor, the knife lodged in, blood rapidly oozing over his stolen coat. Dark blood that matted down the fibres on the front. His eyes were now tightly closed in pain.
Stunned, Amy stared in disbelief. She watched his hands upturn, crimson. His chest heave up and down. His mouth agape fighting for each breath.
She had felt scared about the prospect of killing him earlier, but for him to kill himself – ? No, no, he isn’t dead. And I’m not gonna let some guy kill himself in my kitchen, it’s just plain unhygienic for one thing. No!
She picked up the telephone and dialled 999. “Hi, yeah, I need an ambulance and the police, please… Far Forest, yeah… a man broke into my home and now he’s stabbed himself…”
SHIT, shit, shit. They’d never believe he stabbed himself. They’d think I did it. Shit.
“… yeah, that’s what I said, can you get the ambulance here quickly he’s still bleeding all over the kitchen floor…”
No they won’t. Even if they do I could claim self-defence. He broke in and was gonna attack me. Where’s his weapon? they’ll say. It’s in him! No, no, I ain’t gonna get blamed for this. Hell, I ain’t even gonna claim self-defence, he did it to himself!
“… okay, sorry, what was that?… yeah, he looks unconscious… I ain’t going over there… you come here and lie him down! Look, how long you gonna be?… well he can wait till then, then!” She put the phone back down and wondered what to do next.
He did look unconscious, slumped against her kitchen cupboards with his legs spread across the tiles, his right foot kicking the broken one.

That broken tile never was fixed.

She went over to the sink and poured herself a glass of water. As she gulped it down, the Minister’s breathing became wheezy.
You gonna watch him die?
She looked at him again, his head was resting against the open cutlery drawer. There was now a small puddle of blood spreading from his buttocks. The sun came out and spread a glow through the kitchen window. Studying him better now, she was positive she had never seen him before in her life.
“Who do you think you are, eh?” she said, walking towards him. “You deserve to die if you’re gonna break into people’s homes and take their stuff.” She bent over his legs and grabbed them, then started to pull them towards her. He moved quickly, pulling the knife – which had an extremely short blade, not like the one he had been holding – from his belly and thrusting it at Amy’s neck. In seconds she was sprawled on the tiles desperately clutching at her throat which was leaking blood everywhere.
The Minister forced himself to stand and grabbed a tablecloth from the nearby counter to pad his wound. And, with the police on their way, he made a quick retreat, taking nothing but Amy’s life, without even looking back.

I pulled the trigger and a bullet flew through the air and landed in his brain. He fell dead in the broken earth of the daffodils, right beneath the hallway window.
And then I waited. I kept looking at the house and remembering everything that had happened there, the wonderful times I’d spent. It felt good to look at it, breathing in the fresh air with a slight burnt odour, which would soon be gone. The sun was rising. Its warmth touched my face which had been so cold for much of the waiting night. My vigil was over, but I couldn’t leave. Not even when a spider suddenly dangled down in front of me on invisible string, threatening to land in my lap. I took the wrapping paper from my sandwich between my fingers and squished the spider in it. Balling it up, I put it back inside my lunchbox. I was a ‘Power Ranger.’


Half an hour went by before I gave serious thought to leaving. But it had been so long since I’d seen her, I knew I didn’t have much time to wait to see her again, if I just stayed a little longer.
Amy opened the front door in her dressing gown to retrieve the milk that waited on the doorstep. She looked up, stared around her for a while, but didn’t see me. She didn’t walk around to the side and find the dead Minister either.
I really did have to go.
But then a car came into view at the top of the road, a red Ford Sierra, just like Craig Mayhew drove. Its engine grew louder as it approached, and I ached for a view inside but the sun was higher now and glinting off the windshield. It pulled into the driveway and Craig cut the engine. The back door opened. Birds sang suddenly from nowhere. And out stepped the twins, Neil and Kyle, so young and small, their brown-haired heads bobbing. Kyle closed the door behind him and my heart sank.
Craig opened his door and stepped out. He still had hair.
And finally Miranda opened her door. A leg stepped out, then another, then the whole of Miranda came out. Her brown hair was so long back then, down to the middle of her back, and she looked so innocent. Granted, she was only seven years old, but there was something pure in her face that I found beautiful. My heart beat quicker than it ever had in its short life. I kept my eyes on her and knew that I still loved her, and whether in her childhood or adulthood, she was the most beautiful creature on the Earth.
I wanted to kiss her lips before any other guy would get a chance. Before John from the year above in a years time. I wanted to say so much. And I had a crazy urge to want to go inside and play with her Lego set for the rest of the day. With her, of course. But she only had the set with the swimming pool and the hotel. Maybe I could bring my Knights over…
No, she was gone, back inside the house, all of them through the front door. The Minister lay in wait. I hoped Miranda wouldn’t be the one to find him, but there was nothing I could do about it now.
I’d already spent way too long there. It was time to go. But I’d seen her. And my heart was still racing. I have to go. Thoughts together – now!
There was some travelling to be done if I was to get home by tonight, so I dropped my things to the ground and followed them. The rifle split into two parts so fit into my rucksack comfortably, which I threw across my shoulders. As I picked up my lunchbox to go, the front door of the Mayhew’s opened, and Miranda stepped out. I glanced at her and met her eyes, and she stared at me with childish curiosity. And I stared at her. It was a contest. In the end, she won, because she started to walk towards me. Given the chance she’d come right on over and start asking me questions, and I’d be like a guilty man high on truth serum. Not to mention a quivering, nervous wreck. I might have been as old as a thousand years, mentally, but physically I was a child and as such was struck by all the maladies of a young, shy, inexperienced and nervous boy, desperate to be cool and interesting, never without a word to say or a spit of wit. She watched as an eight year old boy ran away from her before he could be interrogated, or worse, asked out.

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