The Tales of Gehiwian Circle

The Trapper

"I'm telling you, it's too tall," the child said, "It's going to hit the beam."

The beam, Tim thought, What beam?

"I can't let you try," the child said.

"Try what?" Tim stiffened, "What's going on?"

"I can't let you leave. The tub won't fit."

"Is this a joke?" Tim looked around, for Neville or any of his buddies. "Are you Neville's younger brother?"

The child said nothing. He stared at Tim, expression blank, black and blue lips shut. Something flew down from the birch trees at the edge of the forest. A small, black bird, no bigger than a sparrow, landed on the child's shoulder. It sung a short melody, an eerie, canary-like song.

Black canaries...?

A crimson liquid glistened on the end one of the canary's claws. Tim pressed the cut on his cheek again as his eyes widened.

Another canary fluttered out of the forest onto the child's shoulder, followed by another, then another. Tim gaped in horror as a flood of feathers poured from the trees, flying, diving and banking around the child. Hundreds, maybe thousands of black canaries swooped round him, thick enough to block out the sun.

Stumbling backwards, Tim's eyes danced around the murmuration. The flock flew as one into the shape of a giant cape, before divebombing down in what looked like a landslide of black rock.

The avian avalanche flowed towards Tim, coming from all sides faster than anything his panicked eyes could register. He ran, in the only direction available to him, into the mine. 

Tim flicked on his torch and threw himself through the entrance, into the darkness. The first painful cuts sliced him. The air, musky and stale, was scythed into a thousand micro currents as wings and singing shadows mobbed him. Tiny claws snatched at his clothes, his hair, his bag.  An echoing chorus of haunting trills and whistles bombarded him. Swatting away what he could with flailing arms, Tim's torchlight raced up, down, across the walls, ceiling and floor. His disoriented senses couldn't take anymore. 

Catching his foot on something in the dark, the torrent of wings vanished, replaced with the sensation of wind rushing up from underneath. Tim's left shoulder hit the ground first, sending him into a roll down a loose pile of gravel. Coughing, Tim's fingers clawed gouges in the loose ground as he rolled his aching shoulder. It had bruised deeply, but thankfully just avoided dislocation. In a moment of reprieve, he realised.

He'd fallen down the mine shaft.

Tim dragged himself up, flexing his hands. The torch was gone. Crawling around in the gravel, he briefly panicked, heart thundering, before he noticed the strong beam of light cutting across the tunnel floor. He retrieved the torch and examined his surroundings. It was one of the old coal tunnels, the walls and ceilings all carved through the bedrock. Black, wet stone covered every layer he could see. A set of narrow gauge rails stretched deeper into the mine, the wooden sleepers almost rotted away. Shining his torch up what had once been a lift shaft for hauling wagons from the mine up to ground level, Tim saw no remnants of the lift. He had no way back up to the surface.

Shivering as the cold cloak of mine air settled over him, Tim shone the torch onto himself. Small tears and grazes adorned his clothes and neck, but there was nothing serious.

There's been no canaries near these mines for almost 100 years, he thought to himself. Then he remembered the child. The hairs on the back of his neck stiffened. Was it some kind of spirit, or apparition? Were all those canaries ones that had died over the years, suffocated by toxic gases?