The Devil Walks

by Anne Fine

  I trembled. ‘I’m sure I don’t know.’

  ‘Oh, but I’m sure you do.’

  The clock ticked grimly on. I was as surely gripped by those strange, cat-like eyes as if he mesmerized me in the candlelight. Suddenly I felt the urge to tell him everything. I couldn’t bear the weight of secrets any more. I would explain about the doll’s house – throw myself upon his mercy, hope against hope that—

  The door swept open. There stood Martha, and I shook myself back into sense. How could I even think of helping the captain in his quest to make my life no longer worth a bean? And so we sat in silence as Martha gathered up the dishes that had been pushed aside and left the room. Tick, tock. Tick, tock. Pretending my attention was on the apple pie she’d slid in front of me, still every few seconds I stole odd glances at my step-uncle, only to see him spooning up his food in great haste, glowering horribly.

  Then, with one last quick grimace of contempt, he threw down his napkin. ‘This meal is done. So off to bed with you!’

  There was no chance of that, for I was terrified and didn’t plan to stay a single moment longer under his roof. The moment I was sure he wasn’t following, I hurried to the kitchen where Martha stood as usual, bent over her stained sink, rinsing the crocks.

  I came up behind her. ‘Martha!’ I whispered hastily. ‘Wherever the captain’s been, whatever he’s done or heard, it’s changed things. I’m not safe to stay.’ I tugged her arm. ‘Promise me now that you’ll come after me. I swear the Marlows are the kindest people. I know that they won’t rest till they’ve found you and Thomas work and shelter.’

  She kept her face turned. ‘No point in running, Daniel.’

  My panic turned to irritation at her stubbornness. ‘You saw his mood at supper! I’ll be safer gone.’

  She turned to face me. ‘Safer? And just how safe is that? This is no fairy story, Daniel. Think! Your mother was pursued into the grave. This is no petty wickedness you can escape by running off.’

  A chill fell over me. ‘What are you saying, Martha?’

  ‘Daniel, this is some deep, deep evil we are dealing with – an evil that has done for one fine boy after another. And for the sweetest lady who ever lived, and her one gentle daughter. Surely you understand that if you are to live the rest of your life in any sort of peace or safety, you must be rid of what hangs over you.’

  I looked into her face, and it was lined with age and anguish. I tried to comfort her. ‘You’ve done your best for me, I know. And I am grateful. But the man is in some strange and twisted frenzy. I’d be safer gone – this very night! No! Now!’

  So off I stumbled in the gathering dark, across the courtyard into the shadow of trees. I didn’t dare go down the drive to the main gate. Suppose the captain were watching! So I set off directly for the nearest stretch of garden wall, planning to find a tree that I could climb to drop myself over.

  I stumbled down one path after another that seemed to snake the way I wanted through the thickening woods, only to turn on a whim to lead me in some other. But finally, in luck at last, I followed a well-trodden path that ended at the wall.

  Or so I thought, until I saw that, hidden beneath a clump of overhanging ivy, there was a door.

  I pushed it open. On the other side the path led on, first through more trees, then past a host of fruit bushes and into a rose walk so old the trellis arches leaned awry. But though the paving underfoot was soft with moss, the roses had been tended carefully, for none of the heady blooms slapped in my face and no thorns snagged as I walked through.

  I stepped out onto a narrow path that led to a cottage. Outside on a bench there sat a man, hunched over, whittling wood in the shaft of light that fell from the lamp in his window.

  Hearing the rustle of my footsteps, he looked up. ‘Daniel? Is it you?’

  ‘Thomas!’ I burst out in astonishment, and stopped to stare at the dwelling, so low and squat it looked as if it might have sprouted from the ground. ‘Is this where you spend your nights?’

  He grinned. ‘Why? Does it look to you as if the roof is too much rotted to keep the weather off?’ His look turned curious. ‘Here’s a late visit! I would have thought your uncle would have packed you off to bed well before now.’

  ‘He has.’ And, for the first time since I’d seen the captain’s bag lying there on the step, I felt a little safer. My heart stopped thumping.

  Thomas raised an eyebrow. ‘So was it Martha sent you here?’

  I shook my head. ‘I found the door in the wall by accident.’

  ‘In the dark? After the captain ordered you up to your attic?’ Plainly bewildered, he rose to lead me into his little house. And while he pushed a few untidy pots of herbs along the table to make room for his lamp, I peered around at his cosy bed against the wall, his tools hung up in rows, the jug and ewer, and his heap of clothes piled on an old armchair.

  I kept as close to him as a duckling would to its mother as he set out his supper. My offers followed one another as fast as raindrops running down a windowpane. ‘I’ll slice that loaf for you.’ ‘I’ll stir that soup.’ ‘Let me bank up that fire.’

  He found my clinging manner tiresome. ‘Sit down,’ he ordered me at last. Then he asked outright, ‘Were you running away?’

  The pitiful attempt at explanation tumbled out. ‘I didn’t dare to stay – not even to pack my bag or wait to say goodbye! The captain’s come back in the strangest mood. His eyes shine, and he wheels about, punching the air in triumph about some wonder that has come his way, some secret he’s unearthed. He says harsh things and thumps the table top to make spoons dance, then smiles as if he were the cat and I the mouse, and—’

  Thomas put out a hand to quieten me. ‘Now, now. No need to take fright at the captain’s moods. That’s just his way. Whenever his business affairs go right the man is giddy for days.’ He made a wry face. ‘And when they don’t, Lord, how we pay for it!’

  ‘His business affairs?’ At once I felt a little calmer. For truly, what had stocks and shares and London banks to do with me? Up till that moment it had never occurred to me the captain could not live only on air, or some small naval pension. Of course his financial gambles and investments would matter to him and, if they went well, he’d be triumphant.

  Thomas was grinning now. ‘And things must be going well. For years the captain’s barely left this house. But, in the last few weeks, we’ve seen his restlessness growing again, until, this week, he took us by surprise and hurried to the city.’ Still he was grinning. ‘Whatever business affairs he was about, things certainly must have fallen in his favour, because the moment he was home he called to Martha to warn her that a cart arrives tomorrow. And couldn’t we do with that! Martha claims she is almost out of flour and meal, and if I have to crawl much further into the cellar to find a bottle of wine, I shall be nibbled by toads.’

  I tried to smile, but Thomas could see the effort fail. He raised the lamp to my face. ‘Pale as a grub!’ he declared. ‘The captain all too easily forgets you’re just a boy.’ He pulled back the bedcovers. ‘You can stay here tonight. You’ll be quite safe.’

  ‘Quite safe?’ I wailed. ‘I fear I won’t be safe till he has shaken me to a limp rag to check no secrets fall out of my pockets. But Martha says that if I leave, he’ll only follow me.’ My tears were flowing now. ‘I’m like a rabbit in a cage.’

  Thomas said cheerily, ‘We have had those before, and set them free.’

  He handed me a rag to wipe my face, and sat beside me till my spirits rose and I felt braver. Then he insisted that I take the bed, and pulled the covers over me. ‘There’s time enough to talk about your future in the morning.’

  I knew the only future I could countenance, and thought with longing of the family to whom I was determined to return. Thomas, I knew, could easily be persuaded to leave his morning tasks and walk me safely into Illingworth to catch the earliest train. And so I lay with eyes obediently closed, willing the clock to tick faster through the hours till, soothed by t
he soft clatter as my tranquil, confident companion moved around the room and damped the fire, I finally fell into a deep sleep.

  I was the first to wake. Thomas still lay, wrapped thickly in a counterpane in the armchair, dead to the world.

  In the dawn light, I looked around the cottage.

  Over there – in that dark corner! Did I see tiny staring eyes?

  I threw the covers off to cross the room and look more closely. Along the top of the oak chest there sat a row of dolls: fat baby dolls in knickerbockers and flounces; tall, stately dolls, and pretty childlike dolls; dolls who were made to be cuddled, and dolls so stiff and stern they looked as if they could be left in any school room and, though made only out of wood, keep perfect order.

  When Thomas woke I asked him, ‘Did you make all of these?’

  He stretched and yawned and nodded. ‘I make the dolls and Martha dresses them, and they’re sold in the village shop. Sometimes I make them to order. And sometimes I just make the doll I choose to make.’ He waved a hand towards the tumble of wooden people on the chest. ‘If no one buys it in a matter of months, then back it comes to join my little family.’

  Pushing his body stiffly out of the chair, he went towards the range to throw more sticks onto the fire.

  As he reached for the bellows I asked, ‘Do you make houses for them too?’

  He shook his head. ‘The one I made for Liliana was the first and last. Since it could never be matched, I never tried.’

  My brain felt as if the jumbled pieces of a puzzle inside were shifting suddenly. Picking my words with care, I asked, ‘So was it you who made the dolls my mother always said were in her doll’s house?’

  He looked up, startled. ‘She talked to you of those?’

  I thought of telling him the truth: not only had she spoken of the dolls, but they were mine. Yet I had kept my secret so well in this house. And if I planned to leave, then it was surely better not to burden this good man with confidences that he’d have to hide.

  So once again I spoke warily. ‘I know that, when she was a girl, my mother had a peg-thin lady doll …’

  ‘The image of your grandmother – though it was wrong of me to carve her as such a starveling, for though we did not know it at the time, she was already halfway to death’s door.’

  ‘There was a rosy-cheeked girl.’

  ‘Liliana herself.’

  ‘And a young man with a crown.’

  Now Thomas stared in true astonishment. ‘How the past vanishes!’ he said. ‘I had forgotten that she made me carve the Edmund doll a crown.’ Now he was smiling at the memory. ‘Indeed, the order came so late in the whittling that in the end his glorious crown could be no more than a thin coronet – and that a fragile affair.’

  Again I felt the pieces of the puzzle twist, to take a newer, more disturbing shape. ‘What of my step-uncle?’ I asked.

  Thomas reached for the kettle whispering on the hob. ‘What of him?’

  ‘Did he ask you to make a doll for him?’

  ‘Jack? Ask for a doll? He had no mind for games like that!’ He poured the steaming water on his bran and mine, adding, ‘Though I remember once that Liliana made me whittle a doll to her stepbrother’s likeness. It was to be a special gift for the day he was made captain. “A kindred spirit,” Liliana joked, “to share his cabin.” But then she couldn’t for the life of her decide if she wanted me to show him as he’d been when he was younger, or how he was now he’d grown to a man.’

  The last of the pieces fell in place. ‘And so you whittled both!’

  Chuckling, Thomas passed me my bowl of bran. ‘Indeed I did. A head at each end, thinking to trim whichever Jack she finally dismissed down to his long thin legs!’ He shook his head. ‘I spent whole hours on it, week by week. It was a masterpiece.’

  Now everything was clear to me. ‘And even then my mother couldn’t choose!’

  ‘She told you that? Yes, right to the very day Jack left, Liliana was dithering. “Shall I give him the man? Oh, but the boy’s so like! Oh, Thomas, I can’t choose!” So in the end she gave the doll as it was.’ Again he laughed. ‘All those hours whittling! All Liliana’s fretting! Simply for Jack to lay it by with barely a word of thanks.’

  ‘But,’ I said, sure of the whole story now, ‘he took it with him, didn’t he?’

  ‘In the end, yes.’ Thomas scowled at the memory. ‘But only to tease Edmund. Just as Jack left the house he snatched it up again and said, “See, Edmund? Even this little man of wood dares come a-seafaring! Next time it must be you!” And then he thrust the little doll into his canvas bag and hurried down the steps.’ I watched as Thomas spooned the last scraps from his bowl, then added, ‘And yet, for all I know, the first thing Jack did once he was on board the ship was toss it overboard, for neither Liliana nor I ever saw it again.’

  So I felt braver, now I knew for certain that the Severin doll was what my step-uncle craved. I’d seen the passion in his eyes. I’d seen the way he lost control each time he spoke of the doll’s house. I’d been a fool, guessing at hidden wills behind its wallpaper and diamonds in the roses. The captain had no interest in anything except the doll Thomas had carved of him and he’d despised – until the day his ship sailed somewhere effigies were prized, and sorcerers clung to ancient powers.

  He would have heard his shipmates’ outlandish claims: ‘Stick pins in such a doll and you will make its mirror image writhe in agony!’

  ‘Pour treasures on it, and its living twin will thrive and thrive!’

  Who wouldn’t long for such an easy path to fortune? On which of his many voyages had he dared carry the little figure ashore and barter with the witch doctor to cast a spell? How much blood had been spilled? How much gold paid? Small wonder it was precious to the captain!

  And on the day he sailed away on one last murderous voyage, to tip the last son of the family into a watery grave, what better place to hide the little figure than in a doll’s house?

  I shivered, chilled to the bone at the mere thought of Captain Severn’s fury when he came home to find that Liliana had fled – and taken with her, unawares, the small demonic effigy that had been primed to work its master’s will.

  My mother couldn’t possibly have guessed at its dark powers. But now I realized for the very first time why I had lain in bed for all those years. Because the doll was locked away! Sophie was young enough to look at things without the prejudice of reason. What had she said? ‘This doll can make things happen.’

  People might say to her, ‘Oh, nonsense, child! A doll is just a doll. It has no strength of purpose.’ But Sophie had seen things clearly.

  Only my mother hadn’t understood. Blindly she’d fought to protect me from evil that she sensed was growing around her. Now, at last, things fell into place.

  That night I saw her on her knees, whispering a prayer to ‘keep safe my precious boy Daniel, and his Uncle Se—’ I had misheard. She had been begging for her son to be kept safe from his uncle.

  And now I realized that all the time this doll lay locked away as though inside a coffin, its poisonous spirit had been quietly seeping into our lives – turning my mother’s mind, making her change from the warm, open Liliana everyone remembered into some pale, weak mockery of that malignant little manikin, and causing her to clamp down on my life as if I too had been shut in a box.

  But nothing more. For what had the vicar said in church that Sunday? ‘Without our help, the devil can make no headway. For him to triumph, we must invite him in.’

  And she’d not done that. No. Indeed, her faithfulness and love had somehow managed to weaken the hateful manikin’s powers to make another’s sufferings mirror its own.

  But these were strong. I thought again about the scar across the captain’s cheek, remembering Sophie’s careless scratching of the doll’s face when she attacked the skirts so hastily with a pin. Then, too, hadn’t the captain told me how much he longed to leave High Gates – how he despised the place! But the imprisoned doll he so resemble
d had clearly, over the long years that they’d been apart, held him almost as fast as he’d held me – the victim closest to his hiding place.

  And suddenly I felt a very flood of all my former love for my poor mother. All these long months since Dr Marlow made it clear that there was nothing wrong with my health, the image of her face had come to me, over and over, and each time I had had to stifle—

  What? Loss, certainly. Misery, too. But something else as well – something as hard and hateful as that small double-headed doll. Resentment. Anger, even. Why, I had wondered constantly, had someone who should have cherished and cared for me – my very own mother! – offered me nothing but a shuttered life, and kept me locked away for no good reason?

  The answer was now clear. And I could also understand what had been in mind that day when I held up the thin peg doll that so resembled her and looked into those anguished eyes and whispered, ‘What must I do for you?’

  At last – at long last – came the answer to that too.

  I must forgive her.

  And I could.

  Along with the relief I felt, courage poured into my heart. Oh, I was still determined to leave High Gates. But now it was for quite another reason. I had begun to wonder what mischief the doll was pursuing alone with Sophie. Was she again speaking in horrid voices? Or being forced into her bed?

  ‘Thomas!’ I grabbed his arm. ‘I must get back to the Marlows. See me safe to the station stop!’

  ‘Come, come!’ he soothed. ‘What will the family think of a boy who hurries back to them without the shirts they took such care to stitch, and boots that cost so much?’

  And so I hurried after him down the path into the old rose walk, telling myself that though my uncle might be puffed with city secrets, he’d not discovered mine. I must be safe. We fell in step, through the door in the wall and then along the path in the woods.