by Adam Slater
No matter; the tantalising trace of power is strong again. The aura that the boy throws off makes the Hunter sigh with anticipation. It will feed soon.
Its quarry is very near. Tormented with hunger, the Hunter closes in.
*
‘Melissa, wait!’
Melissa was just closing the gate. She turned and looked back at Callum. Her big eyes and loose, thick hair made her face seem small in the dim light cast by the bulb hanging over the cottage porch.
‘I’m really sorry about this,’ Callum said awkwardly. ‘I don’t know what’s the matter with her. She’s not normally so unfriendly.’ He took a breath. ‘She’s nice, really.’
‘Oh, it’s OK,’ Melissa said. ‘I was messing with her books, wasn’t I? And she hasn’t ever seen me before.’ Melissa frowned. ‘But something really strange is going on here, and your gran knows something about it. We need to find out more about this Churchyard Grim.’
‘We’ll figure something out,’ Callum said quietly. ‘And thanks for coming down here on your own. I don’t . . . I don’t want to get you in trouble.’
Callum’s voice trailed away. He didn’t want to put her in any danger, but he didn’t like to say so. Was he dangerous – was it dangerous for him to make new friends? Callum pushed the thought to the back of his mind. He’d been holding people at arm’s length for so long he’d never realised how nice it was just to spend time with someone his own age without running around on a sports field.
‘We should try to be a bit more methodical about this,’ Melissa said. ‘We’ve got the same morning break tomorrow, right? Let’s talk about it then.’
She hesitated. ‘I don’t suppose you could bring that book? We could use the copying machine in the school library -’
Callum shook his head. ‘I don’t think so. You saw what Gran was like when she noticed you standing near that shelf. I don’t know how I’d get to it again without her knowing. It’s such a little house.’
‘I like it,’ Melissa said. ‘I love how everything fits together so neatly, like a caravan. Or a narrowboat.’
‘Well, it’s not much good for keeping secrets in,’ Callum replied.
Although Gran seems to have managed, he thought.
Melissa nodded sympathetically. ‘Maybe we can find some references to your Churchyard Grim on our own. Let’s meet in the school library anyway and do some real research. Libraries keep archives of old newspapers, right? Maybe we can find a copy of that article from the Advertiser. Or even something more recent, now we know we’ve got a local ghost to look for. It might be worth checking the Internet too.’
‘That’s a good idea,’ Callum agreed. ‘And I’d like to find out more about what it means to be a chime child. Maybe there’s some reason for all this that I’m missing.’
‘Don’t worry, we’ll find something.’ Melissa shifted her big mirrored bag so it hung more comfortably over her shoulder. ‘See you tomorrow then.’
‘Be careful when you get to the estate at the top of the hill, OK? Ed Bolton’s been waiting there for me for the last two days, and I bet he’d have a go at you instead if he got the chance.’
‘Don’t worry. My auntie and all my cousins live up there too. I’ll stand on someone’s doorstep and scream my head off if he tries anything. And I don’t have far to go after that; we live in the yellow-brick house next to the station.’
‘Be careful anyway,’ Callum said.
‘Sure,’ Melissa said, nodding.
Callum watched as she walked away into the trees, then took a deep breath and turned back towards the cottage.
Time to face the music.
*
The Hunter’s insides twist with hunger.
It can see its prey now, so close, so close – radiant with nourishing power. The sensation makes the Hunter almost dizzy. It halts silently at the garden gate, poised for the kill.
Then the boy steps squarely over the threshold of his dwelling place. Instantly, the tantalising presence vanishes.
The Hunter is baffled. One second it could sense flesh and blood and bone, ripe for the taking. Now it has disappeared behind the crumbling mortar walls as though it never was.
The dwelling must be protected. A charm? Blessing? Curse?
The Hunter slinks around the flimsy barriers thrown up against mortal intruders: the low wall, the wooden gate, the briar hedge. It leaps lightly along the roof of the adjoining cottage to examine the dwelling from above.
No mere charm protects this place. It is enmeshed in a complex web of magic shields, cloaking it and guarding it. The flowers and herbs along the garden path, the guardian trees, are situated with accurate detail and woven together with spells of warding and concealment. The prey is well protected in its den.
The Hunter pauses. Has this quarry woven this protective web itself? Can it be a foe with power that can be used against the Hunter?
The Hunter considers the possibility for a moment.
No. It cannot be. This victim is not dangerous; it is simply better at concealing itself than the others.
But the Hunter knows that a mortal creature cannot stay forever within protective walls. It must venture out for food and the social gatherings that fill all human days. Sooner or later the boy will cross his charmed threshold and stand blinking and unshielded in the world beyond the garden wall.
The Hunter will be waiting. It looks forward to toying with this prey when it is finally caught. An end to this game of cat and mouse.
It is still hungry.
Chapter 14
Gran was on her knees, scrubbing at the spilled hot chocolate with a floor cloth and a steaming bucket of soapy water. As Callum came in she leaned back on her heels and said sarcastically, ‘How good of you to join me!’
For once Callum had no doubt that he held the moral high ground. He stood with his hands on his hips and did not offer to help.
‘Gran, you were completely unfair to Melissa. You didn’t even listen to what she was doing here, you just told her to get out! Is that how you expect me to treat your visitors?’
‘Callum, this is my house,’ Gran retorted angrily. ‘I won’t have strange teenagers moving my furniture around and making free with my kitchen. I simply won’t have it, Callum. You ask first.’
‘You weren’t here and I didn’t know she was coming.’
‘All the more reason not to let her in.’
Gran was being completely irrational.
‘Gran, Melissa goes to my school. I see her every day. She’s in my class. She’s not a stranger!’
Gran took a deep breath, obviously trying to control her temper.
‘How much do you actually know about this girl?’ she challenged. ‘Do you know where she lives?’
‘The yellow-brick house next to the station,’ Callum answered triumphantly.
‘Do you know who she lives with? Are her parents still together? Has she got any brothers or sisters?’
‘She’s got cousins who live in the new housing estate up the hill.’
‘I asked about her, not her cousins.’
Callum ground his teeth with frustration. ‘Gran, look, I don’t know those things about her. She doesn’t know those things about me, either, except what I told her this afternoon. Those aren’t things that matter about a person. The things that matter, you’d like. Melissa’s clever. She does well in school, and the teachers like her. She reads all the time, she loves books. And she’s -’
Callum remembered how Melissa had nearly put her hand in the fire. He wasn’t sure he could call her honest or loyal, but he knew that she was brave and trusting. And something, his Luck maybe, told him that she was genuine. She really did want to help him.
But he’d hesitated too long over the right word. Gran interrupted sharply.
‘The best thing you could do for a friend like that is try to straighten her out. What was she wearing? All that alternative fashion nonsense, crystals hanging around her neck, those silly tattoos! All she needs is a
few paper charms pinned to her skirt. I’ll bet she calls herself a Wiccan. What’s she trying to be, some kind of witch? You watch out, Callum -’
Callum was so angry he didn’t wait to hear the rest of Gran’s tirade. Shoving the drop-leaf table out of the way, he grabbed his homework and stormed upstairs.
*
The impact of his dramatic departure was somewhat lessened when Callum had to come back down to make tea. He’d forgotten it was his turn, and he knew that even after a row, Gran would be expecting him to stick to the routine. If he didn’t, there would be no supper at all.
He clattered around in the kitchen, making as much noise as possible. Then they ate a silent meal together. There had never been such a frosty atmosphere between them. If the cottage was too small to keep secrets in, it was even more cramped when you were sharing it with an enemy.
After tea, Callum marched back upstairs and spent the evening in his room. Sitting alone in the cold for a couple of hours made him realise how pleasant it really was sharing the fireside with Gran on a windy November evening.
At last, Gran went to bed too. There was no shifting of furniture tonight; maybe she suspected Callum might still be awake and didn’t want to risk giving away the location of her hidden occult library. Despite her reaction to Melissa, Callum didn’t think Gran suspected he might have discovered it.
The books . . . As he turned the thought of them over and over in his mind, Callum was only half aware of Gran getting ready for bed next door. The books held answers, he was sure of it. Answers she seemed determined to keep from him. The idea of all that knowledge sitting downstairs, just waiting to be discovered, was torture. What he had said to Melissa was true – he couldn’t risk moving any of the books out of the cottage. But that didn’t mean he couldn’t take another look at them. If he was careful . . .
His mind made up, Callum counted to two thousand after Gran’s light went out before he dared to move. Cadbury sighed in displeasure at another midnight disturbance, then got up and stretched. For a moment, Callum was afraid the cat was going to come downstairs with him and get in his way. Shutting him in the bedroom wasn’t an option, as Cadbury was bound to yowl for the door to be opened. But instead of following Callum to the door, the cat leaped across to his post on the windowsill and stared out into the darkness. Then he gave a low, rumbling growl of warning.
‘What’s going on out there?’ Callum whispered. ‘You’re making me nervous, Cad.’
The growl was a sound Callum rarely heard from Cadbury. The cat did lunatic acrobatics sometimes, and Callum was permanently at war with him over the number of dead birds left on the patio, but Cadbury had an easygoing and friendly nature. The strange growling was totally out of character. Callum shivered.
‘Just keep it down and don’t wake Gran,’ he told Cadbury as he slipped through the door on to the tiny landing. It was pitch dark. He tiptoed to the top of the stairs and slowly made his way down, every floorboard in every step creaking as he went. Again Callum had forgotten to put on socks or slippers, and again his feet were freezing. His hands too.
Is it just the cold? he wondered. Or is something bad about to happen?
He gave himself a test by dragging one finger hard along a rough timber beam in the stair wall. A sharp pain stabbed underneath his skin. Callum gasped and bit his lip; he’d picked up a splinter on the old wood.
But at least he could feel his fingertips. No visions tonight, then.
Callum made it to the bottom of the stairs without waking Gran, and for a moment stood still, breathing slowly while his heart pounded. He’d have to pull himself together if he wanted to find the old scrapbook again.
There was a faint red glow coming from the grate, just enough to see by. When he’d managed to get his breathing back to normal, Callum quietly lifted one of the straight-backed chairs and carried it to the window. He knew where to look now; he wouldn’t have to move too many books before he found the one he wanted. Maybe he could manage to sneak the ancient scrapbook into his rucksack, get it to school and make copies of the picture of Jacob. Or maybe he could just take the picture with him and leave the book in its usual place. That would be safer.
Callum paused, just in case he’d disturbed Gran’s sleep when he was creeping downstairs, or she’d stirred while he was moving the chair. These days Callum knew all too well what it was like to lie awake in the dark, straining to hear something out of the ordinary.
The night was silent. Almost too quiet. There was no wind, and no sound from outside. Even the owls seemed to have lost their voices, and Callum felt the hair at the back of his neck rise. It was like the feeling he’d had in his dream, when he had come to the path beside the canal – a sensation of dread, the sure knowledge of the presence of evil. Only, at the canal he had known that the evil was in the past, over and done with. This was entirely more urgent. There was evil here now. It was beyond the cottage walls, but it was close – too close. In the garden perhaps, waiting and lurking, a thing old and full of malevolence.
Had Jacob come back? Callum had shut him out once, but he was sure the ghost boy wasn’t going to give up. Could he be out there now, prowling with his demon hound? All Callum’s body was prickling now with the sensation of danger, not just his fingers. Was the danger all around the house? Callum closed his eyes and allowed the unfamiliar sense to guide him. No, it was worse at the back. He could feel it there, sense it as though it were calling him. It was in the back garden.
Next to the doorway leading to the little kitchen, the wall of the sitting room had a set of full-length glass doors that opened on to the garden. Callum crossed to them and quietly pulled open one of the curtains so he could look outside.
The sky had cleared. The garden was awash in silver moonlight and blue shadows. Callum didn’t know what he expected to see. Anything out of the ordinary would have startled him, even a fox crossing the garden, but all seemed peaceful. Nothing stirred, but the tingling in Callum’s body was stronger than ever. He scanned the night again and his heart turned over with a thump of shock.
Someone was standing at the far end of the garden.
Callum could not make out any features, but he felt sure it wasn’t Jacob. It was not anyone or anything he had seen before. It was thin and spindle-shanked, a black stick-figure silhouetted in the bright moonlight. It might have been a leafless tree, except that no tree had ever stood there before. Callum’s mouth went dry as he realised that the shadowy figure was inside, not outside, the low garden wall.
Then, as he watched, the figure began to make its way slowly up the winding brick path towards the cottage.
With every step, fear tightened its grip on Callum. The moonlight was so bright it threw long shadows from Gran’s plum trees and bird table, but the moving figure cast no shadow of its own. It was halfway to the house now, and Callum still couldn’t make out anything about it, except that its body seemed to be glistening wet. Callum watched, appalled and fascinated, his hair on end. The thing was not human, but it wasn’t a ghost. It was something else.
The dark figure came closer. Callum wanted to flee, but could only stand transfixed with horror. What was the point in running upstairs and hiding his head under the duvet, with something like this waiting for him outside the cottage walls?
The figure had reached the patio. It walked slowly across the stone slabs and stood at the glass door directly in front of Callum, confronting him.
It was shaped like a human. But it had no face.
Its head was a mass of wet, gleaming veins and cartilage, muscle and teeth – a face without skin or form; lipless, lidless, without nose or ears. It was a flayed face, a face that had been peeled of skin and laid bare. The creature held Callum’s gaze with its unblinking eyes. Callum, frozen in terror, dared not look away.
They stood only a foot apart, staring at each other, nothing between them but the thin panes of the old glass door. The thing tilted its glistening head with what seemed to be an arrogant, mocking curiosity.
>
And then the hideous face changed.
Before Callum’s eyes, human skin grew over the naked web of veins. A human face knitted itself over the bloody flesh. The staring eyes grew lids and lashes, lips grew full and hid the grinning white teeth. Hair sprouted from the gleaming skull.
The change happened in seconds. But the moment Callum realised what he was looking at seemed to go on for hours.
On the other side of the glass door stood a boy of medium height and rugged build in his early teens. There was nothing eerie about this boy, apart from the fact that seconds earlier he had been a monster. Callum saw a face with broad cheekbones and tangled brown hair that was too long and standing up at the back. The face looked a little anxious around the eyes, with a crease of worry between the eyebrows. But it was just a face. A normal face.
It was his face.
Callum stood trembling in the dark, staring through the glass at a perfect replica of himself, even down to the expression of wide-eyed horror and revulsion. It was as if the creature was giving Callum a moment to realise what he was seeing.
Beware the dark reflection . . .
The creature that was not Callum moved suddenly, reaching for the handle of the door. Callum met the movement frantically, grabbing at the handle from the inside to make sure the door was locked – both he and Gran sometimes forgot. Matching hands met on the door handles on opposite sides of the glass and Callum braced himself for a desperate struggle.
At that moment a long, wild howl cut through the silence of the night, deep and powerful and rolling like thunder, and Callum recognised the voice of Doom the Churchyard Grim.
For the first time, the creature outside produced an expression that did not reflect Callum’s. Instead, it frowned. It narrowed its eyes, glanced over its shoulder quickly, and took its hand from the door. Its look was cold and angry. Then the thing met his eyes again and smiled.
The smile turned Callum’s blood to ice. It was a look of ugly promise and anticipation. But for now, it did nothing more. Slowly, never taking its eyes off Callum’s own, the monster backed away down the garden path. Callum noticed that now the thing had taken his face, it cast a shadow too. He shivered.
