Chapter 7 The present
It was still dark when Jade woke up. Looking ath er clock she saw it was three o'clocl in the moring. she lay in bed in the darkness for a while, Paco's warm body next to her. It stange that she'd woken so suddenly. Had someone knovked at the door and called her name? Or was it just a dream, as usual?
Suddenly, her body gave a jump. There was a small noise at the bedroom window. Was something trying to get in? the noise came again, and again.
"Paco, there's something outside," she said. Her voice seemed very loud to her.
"Um, what? Go back to sleep there's nothing there," Paco said sleeply.
Jade sat up. Outside the wind had become stronger and was blowing noisily through the trees. She climbed out of bed and went to the window. Pulling back the curtain she could see that a tree was moving against the glass. So it was the tree that was making the noise. Out, in the light of the moon, the trees and grass were waving and shaking in hte wind. Anything could be hiding in the darkness. Jade put on the lights and walked round the house, looking into every room. There was nothing there, of course. It was just the house itself, mabye, moving in the wind like boat at sea, which had made the knocking noise. She got back into bad, moved close to Paco and went back to sleep.
When Jade woke the next morning she could see the sunlight through the thin curtain in the bedroom. Paco was asleep still. 'It must be late,' she thought. She decided to get up, make some breakfast for both of them and bring it back to bed.
Downstairs the fire was nearly out. They'd used all the wood the night before so she decided to get some more from the garage. She pulled on a coat over hernightclothes and put on some shoes. She went to opedn the door. Strangely, the door didn't move at first. Something seemed to be holiding it. She gave it a pull.
As the door opened, Jade heard herself srcream. It was a strange sound, which came from somewhere deep inside of her. She never made a noise like before in her life. "Paco, Paco!" She couldn't move. There was the sound of feet on wood as Paco came running downstairs.
"What on earth is the matter?" Paco said. "Oh my God . . ." He saw the open door and the large and terrible thing on the ground, half in and half out of the kitchen. "What is that doing there?"
"What is it, Paco?" Jade found it diffecult to speak.
"It's a dead sheep," Paco replied, after a few moments "Listen, you go back to bed and I'll do something with it," he added.
The sheep's body was not pretty to look at. The mouth was open. Paco couldn't help seeing hte tongue wasn't there. The was cut open from the throat down under body as far as the back legs. But the cut was clean and the was no blood. Looking more brave then he felt, Paco took hold of the two back legs. He pulled the body out of the kitchen, and across the road outside the house and into the field opposite.
'We ought to tell somebody about it,' he thought, 'The farmer, probably.' he asked himself why the sheep was there. Did it just die there? Or did an animal leave it by the door? He tried not to think about who, or what, hed put the sheep there. Perhaps there was really was a Beast of Brynmawr. Anyway he felt sick.
He went back into the house, made a cup of tea and took it up to his wife. Jade was lying in the bed. Her pretty face, with her dark hair cut like a boy's, looked small and white.
"God, Paco, that was one of the worst things I've ever seen," she said. "I thought some strange noise in the night, you know. I thought I heard someone knocking at the door. Do you think someone is trying to play some sort of a terrible joke on us?"
"Jade, you mustn't think about it. It was probably just a fox or something. Mabye it decide it would eat it's dinner outside our back door. Come on, let's try and forget it. We're here to have a holiday and enjoy ourselves."
"Well, yes. OK. You're right I'll try," Jade said. But she could still see the cold eye of the sheep looking up at the kitchen floor.
"Do you think the Beast of . . .?" she began again.
"No," Paco spoke quickly. "I don't. forget about it. There's no such thing."
