‘I thought I issued you with strict instructions not to wander off and not to touch anything,’ Didier said. ‘It is too easy to get lost down here, boys. Jacques, I am surprised at you.’
‘Sorry, Papa, but do come and look. We thought it would be just old bones in here, or a corpse or something, but see, it is a marvellous statue.’
‘Sir, I do not think it wise to linger,’ Isik said. ‘We should leave this place. My other guards will come to search for us if we do not return on time.’
‘Yes, Isik, you are right. I will just take a look at this statue and then we will leave.’ Didier walked over to Jacques and peered down into the coffin.
‘My goodness! It is remarkable. Isik, give me a hand to slide this lid off properly.’
The four of them heaved and pushed until the stone lid tipped onto the rock floor with a scrape and clatter. They were greeted with a most unusual sight. Lying in a cloud of silken material was the stone statue of a man in full dress, wearing a jewelled turban and rich green robes.
‘But I do not understand ...’ Didier fingered the cloth, puzzled. ‘How can these clothes be so immaculate? They appear new. Help me with this other one.’
They stepped over to the adjacent coffin and began to slide another lid off. Yet again, they were confronted with a lifelike statue dressed in rich brocaded costume. Didier leaned in to touch the smooth white stone face and stroke the heavy beaded headwear.
‘Byzantine I think. Yes, this clothing is from the Byzantine era. It is the same costume as depicted in the frescoes. We are talking seventh or eighth century perhaps. Let us look at another.’
‘They are so beautiful, so mesmerising.’ Didier gazed at a bejewelled woman statue with a mustard-coloured robe and golden girdle. She wore a gorgeous headdress and a beaded mantle in deep blue. Her pale sculpted face was exquisite and Didier was hypnotised by her beauty.
‘We should head back now, Sir,’ Isik said. ‘I really do not think we should delay further. We can return tomorrow. If we are too long, my guards will put together a search party.’
Didier did not reply. Isik noticed he was not moving. Something did not look quite right.
‘Sir,’ Isik said. ‘Monsieur Chevalier? Sir!’ He crouched next to him and then jumped backwards in shock. He shouted to Jacques and Freddie. ‘Boys, get out! Return to the great hall. Take the others and start back to the surface immediately. Whatever you hear from this room, ignore it!’
Chapter Fifteen
*
When Ben returned from the cinema, it was eight thirty and Maddy had been shivering on the front lawn for over forty minutes. His friend’s mum drove up to the house in a large people carrier. There were about four or five boys in the back who shouted and waved as Ben jumped out. Madison stood up and waved her thanks to the boy’s mother. The woman buzzed down the window and called out to Maddy.
‘I won’t stop! Got to deliver these monsters back home. Ben was a real pleasure, good as gold. He’ll have to come round sometime. Byee!’
‘Thanks!’ Maddy shouted back.
‘Hey, Mads,’ Ben gushed. ‘I had an awesome night. That movie was immense.’
‘Glad it was good, Ben.’
‘You coming in, Mads? Hey the front door’s locked. You got the key on you?’
‘Uhhh, no. Don’t worry, the back door’s open.’
‘Come on then.’ Ben bent down to pull her up off the grass. Maddy reluctantly let herself be helped to her feet. Well, she had to go in sometime. She couldn’t stay out here all night, could she? She supposed she felt marginally better now Ben had come home. Ben, with his twelve-year-old enthusiastic ordinariness.
Maddy followed him around the side of the house and they approached the taut cable that ran from the open cellar window to the Land Rover. Maddy couldn’t help herself - she gave a small shudder and a scream, pretending she was mucking about. Linking arms with him, she shouted:
‘Come on, Ben. Run!’
Ben laughed. ‘Maddy, you’re a psycho. What you doing? Why are we running?’
‘Dunno, Ben. But come on, hurry up.’
‘What’s the Defender doing up there with the rope?’
‘Oh, I was just trying some stuff out. Don’t worry about it.’
They jogged around to the back door, panting and laughing. Maddy’s laughter was slightly crazed. She took a deep breath before entering the house. The back door led into the utility room and the cellar door. Maddy walked straight through to the kitchen and turned on the light. She closed the utility door behind them. Then she walked into the hall and flicked that light on, followed by the lounge light. She switched on the television and put some crappy home makeover show on. That felt somewhat better - a bit more normality. Every time the image of the skull came into her mind, she tried to push it out and concentrate on ordinary things.
‘You hungry?’ She called to her brother who was in the games room, potting some balls.
‘No, we went to Pizza Hut on the way back. I’m stuffed!’
Maddy returned to the lounge where she stared at the bright images flickering across the screen. Still in shock, she had no idea what she was watching. The minutes ticked by slowly until Ben finally popped his head around the door and announced he was off to bed.
‘Wait for me.’ Maddy jumped up from the sofa as if she’d been electrocuted, switched off the TV and followed Ben up the stairs. It was much earlier than the hour she usually went to bed, but there was no way on earth she was staying down here by herself tonight.
She slept with the light on, which was weird in itself. Usually she liked to sleep in total darkness, but tonight her mind played tricks on her and every creak and rustle she heard, sent her heart racing and made the hairs on the back of her neck prickle. She tried to tell herself it was no big deal, all she had found were some old bones and they couldn’t do anything to her. But in the creaking darkness, everything felt menacing and surreal.
Maddy had coped with a lot of things in her life – abandonment, the death of her mother, separation from Ben and a lot of hostility from a lot of different people. She had experienced sadness, anger, frustration and fear. But the feeling rising up in her when she’d seen that grinning skull had been a primal terror that strangled all rationality.
She finally succumbed to sleep sometime after 4am, and endured a series of bad dreams. The remnants lingered with her when she finally awoke, giving rise to strange melancholy emotions. However, it was a relief to see daylight and she showered and dressed, finally walking apprehensively into the kitchen. She hadn’t had any food at all last night and her stomach complained even though she didn’t really feel like eating anything. Maybe she should try to force down a bit of toast or something. Ben was slouched at the table eating cereal.
‘Hey, Mads.’
‘Hey, Benny Boy,’ she murmured.
‘You okay?’ he asked. ‘You look rough.’
‘Didn’t sleep well.’
‘Why don’t you go back to bed then?’
‘No, I’m up now.’
Maddy was just finishing her toast when the doorbell rang. She and Ben looked at each other across the kitchen table. Neither of them moved to answer it. The bell chimed again. Maddy groaned and dragged herself off to answer it while Ben carried on eating. She felt a bad mood descending. After the excitement and subsequent horror of the previous day, she now felt exhausted and depressed, mingled with a pervading unease.
She opened the door and squinted into the sunlight. Travis stood there with a couple of his friends. Oh no, what are they doing here? She wasn’t in the mood to talk to people, especially not people she didn’t even know.
‘Hi,’ she said.
‘Hi, Maddy.’ Travis looked eager. ‘Hope you don’t mind. I thought we’d drop by to see you. These are my mates, Kerri and Taff.’
Maddy looked past Travis and tried to smile at them. She reluctantly realised this could be the perfect distraction to jolt her back into normality.
‘Yeah,
come in.’ She held the door open.
‘This place is unbelievable,’ Kerri cooed in a strong Gloucestershire drawl. She had long dyed blonde curls and twinkly blue eyes, set in a round cherubic face. She was quite large and busty and looked like she could be a laugh.
‘It’s wild, man,’ Taff agreed in a broad Welsh accent. He had straight brown hair in a seventies style, that hung over his eyes and skimmed the collar of his suede jacket.
They sat in the kitchen whilst Madison made tea. Kerri wore a royal blue dress which kept riding up her large white thighs and she tugged ineffectively at it to try and cover up some of her flesh. She and Taff were an item and Maddy was sure that bringing them round was Travis’ unsubtle way of having a double date without actually asking her out. But they seemed like a nice couple so Maddy didn’t mind. She started to perk up, the unsettled feelings receding.
‘So, Maddy, when did you say you were gonna have your next party?’ Travis asked for the twentieth time.
‘Ummm, let me think,’ she made a pretence of pondering over the answer. ‘Never.’
‘Come on, Maddy, just think, you could be single-handedly responsible for launching my career.’
‘It’s launched already,’ Maddy laughed. ‘Don’t try and guilt trip me. I’m not going through that hassle again.’
‘Leave the poor girl alone, Travis,’ Kerri reprimanded him.
‘Yeah, Trav, stop bullying her. I heard it was a good night, but you’ll get other chances to DJ, mate.’ Taff stood up and stretched.
Travis ignored them and turned back to Maddy. ‘You could charge an entrance fee next time.’
‘Shut up, Travis!’ they all shouted and laughed at him.
‘Ten points for trying, Travis. But you lose them all for being so ann-oy-ing,’ Kerri added.
‘Fine, fine, I get the message.’
‘Finally,’ Kerri teased.
Kerri was a very straightforward girl with no pretensions. Just really easy going with an outrageous turn of phrase and a very dirty laugh. Taff was so laid back he was in danger of falling over. He didn’t speak much, but he had a dry sense of humour that was right on Maddy’s wave length. They all naturally included Ben in their conversations too, which immediately endeared them to her.
By the afternoon, Maddy had only had a couple of ‘oh no I’ve got a skeleton in my cellar’ thoughts. They spent most of the warm afternoon outside, chatting and mucking about in the maze, interspersed with the odd few bursts inside on the Wii.
At about six o’clock, Maddy offered to defrost some pizzas for them all and they sat in the lounge watching The X Factor, eating and chatting. Ben stayed up until nearly midnight, finally falling asleep on the sofa and Travis carried him upstairs to bed. It was a good night, relaxed and fun. Kerri and Taff were in the sixth form at KG and said they’d keep an eye out for Ben at school.
The Grandfather clock ticked quietly in the corner. It was already two twenty and her visitors showed no signs of leaving.
‘There’s loads of room here if you want to stay over,’ she said, willing them to say yes.
To her relief, they eagerly accepted, so Maddy gave them a couple of rooms. Happy to have some more company in the house and exhausted from her lack of sleep the night before, she fell into a dreamless slumber the minute she closed her eyes.
On Sunday, none of them woke up until lunchtime, when they all had a chatty, enjoyable brunch of fried egg sandwiches on the sunny terrace. Things felt almost normal and Maddy only felt a small stab of worry when Kerri said she and Taff had better get going. Travis kissed her on the cheek, saying he’d had an excellent time and Kerri made her promise to give her a call so they could go out together. She said goodbye and watched the yellow transit disappear from view.
The rest of Sunday never really got going. Ben and Maddy slobbed around in the house for a bit, then she helped Ben with some History and Maths homework. They watched an early evening film and then, suddenly, the day was done.
The bad dreams returned that night and Maddy slept with the light on again.
*
When Ben went off to school on Monday morning, Maddy had to think about what she was going to do. She couldn’t carry on like this, living in a constant state of dread. Her unease was partly because she didn’t know what else lurked in the room.
She had to face the inevitable and go back down there. She would do it while Esther was in the house, and then if she got really freaked out, at least someone else would be around. Esther was better than no one.
Maddy found what she wanted in Morris’ outbuilding – a couple of large halogen lights. If she was going to do this, no way would she do it in semi-darkness. At least these would take some of the fear factor away. She hoped.
As she stepped out of the stone shed, gripping the lights, everything suddenly seemed supernaturally quiet. She paused for a moment in the warm, still air … Then she gave herself a shake and forced herself to go on, her feet crunching loudly on the gravel in the silence of the morning. Maddy hurried past the Land Rover, still parked up on the side lawn, the rope stretched across the pathway. She began to get that unsettled feeling back.
Esther was rootling about in one of the utility room cupboards. She whipped her head round to look at Maddy as she walked through the back door, her sharp gaze settling on the halogen lights she carried. But Esther said nothing. Just sniffed and walked past, picking up the laundry basket and taking it outside.
Madison grabbed the torch with her free hand and unlocked the cellar door. She told herself not be such a wimp, but she almost shook as she descended the stone steps, she couldn’t help it. She held the torch out. Her stomach felt weak and watery.
The opening in the wall looked raw and wrong, like the gap left by a pulled tooth. She found an electric socket nearby, plugged in both halogens, pressed down the switches and bathed the large cellar in white light. That felt better. She switched off the torch, grasped the handle of one of the lights and shone its wide beam at the hidden room. The stone wall itself was fully intact. The door had been ripped cleanly away and the dust had finally settled. In the sweeping light, she now had a clear view of it.
Again, she thought maybe she should call Mr Vasey-Smith and ask him what to do. But then Madison got annoyed with herself. She had wanted her independence for so long and now here she was with her own house and no one to interfere in her and Ben’s lives. She should be able to sort this out on her own without running to an adult every time there was a problem.
Maddy decided she wouldn’t tell anybody anything until she had looked under the dust sheets. She had seen one dead body, so what difference would a few more make? Quite a lot of difference actually, but she wouldn’t dwell on that. If she found more skeletons, then that would be that. At least she would know. She would tell Mr Vasey-Smith and he could sort it out. But if it wasn’t skeletons, well … there might be some interesting stuff down here and she wanted to discover that for herself.
‘Come on, Maddy girl,’ she whispered to herself. ‘Don’t be such a wuss.’
Gripping the halogen light tightly, she forced herself towards the opening. She rigidly avoided looking at the skeleton, and instead stared straight ahead at the white sheets. She pulled on the dusty corner of the nearest one and dragged it off the top of the large object, throwing up cobwebs and dust which swirled and floated like grey candy floss in the flood of light.
Then she walked towards the skeleton with the sheet in her hands. She shook out the large piece of cloth so it billowed out to finally settle back down on top of the grisly tableau, hiding it from view. Maddy felt calmer. Now it was covered up, it didn’t seem quite so terrifying.
She now turned her attention to what had been underneath the dust sheet - a huge rectangular wooden crate, bigger than the ones in the main part of the cellar. The pale wood looked almost new and Maddy caught a whiff of sawdust. She walked around the crate and pulled at all the other sheets, revealing yet more crates. Wiping fronds of cobwebs from he
r face, she sneezed a couple of times. Apart from the sleeping skeleton and the crates, there didn’t appear to be anything else in the room.
Maddy felt a fleeting surge of courage and decided to go one step further. She went back out into the main cellar and found the crowbar. If she didn’t do this now, she never would. If she found anything horrible, she would run out of the cellar and call Vasey-Smith immediately.
Before she had time to change her mind, she went up to the first crate with the crowbar. To her surprise it wasn’t nailed shut. The lid fitted snugly into the box, but she prised it out easily.
Maddy moved on autopilot. She slid the lid off, holding her breath in a mixture of anticipation and fear at what she would discover. Looking down, she gazed in astonishment at the contents.
Lying, cushioned in blankets was a life-sized statue. But a statue so beautiful she couldn’t turn away from it. Almost lifelike, it lay there like a sleeping beauty - the statue of a young man, dressed in an old fashioned suit.
She touched the face. It felt like stone. She tapped the cheek with her fingernail. It could have been made of porcelain, like an old fashioned doll. It had pale skin and dark wavy hair. The deep-set eyes were closed beneath thick, black brows, the jaw was square, the cheekbones high and regal. It looked like the statue of a nobleman or somebody important. God, it was stunning. Maddy wondered if it had been modelled on a real life person and she wished more than anything that she could have met him, whoever he was.
She finally tore herself away from her gazing and walked over to the second crate. She threw a quick glance over her shoulder to check the skeleton was still covered - it was - and then she prised open the second crate. In it lay another statue, again of a young man, a boy really. This one looked slightly younger than the first, very similar in looks but with fair hair. And again, stunningly handsome.
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