Sentinel

by Joshua Winning

  Nicholas shivered. As the rain battered him, he found it easy to believe such a despicable thing could happen here. When he was a child, he’d marvelled at those macabre tales, thrilling in their bloody ability to chill; but the older he got the more unnerving he found them. Emma Rolfe surely hadn’t wanted to die; her fate had been decided for her by a savage drunk. His parents hadn’t wanted to die either, but that hadn’t stopped it happening. Like Miss Rolfe, their life stories would forever be defined by their deaths.

  Nicholas sniffed, wiped at his nose. It felt strange to cry in the rain. The sky darkened and a drone of thunder threatened to tear the heavens in half. It was time to get back inside.

  The boy turned, then stopped.

  The herd of Red Polls had lined up in front of him, barring his way. They were unnervingly still, staring stupidly at him with goggly eyes that were both vacant and oddly sinister.

  “What the–” Nicholas uttered. He knew cows were curious, but he’d never seen a herd brave a downpour like this just to get a closer look at somebody. He was rooted to the spot.

  “Shoo!” he yelled.

  The cows merely gawped at him. The rain drove into their tough hides and they must be freezing, but the animals didn’t seem to care. Hot breath steamed from their nostrils.

  Nicholas considered for a moment, then began moving slowly towards them, one hand outstretched in front of him. The cows still refused to move. Every one of those lopsided alien eyes was fixed intently on him, as if the creatures were trying to read the boy’s thoughts. Or, Nicholas found himself thinking, wondering what his blood would taste like.

  His heart pounding now, Nicholas pushed forward until he was mere feet away from the wall of hide and hoof. Through the mizzling air, the image of the creatures swam. Nicholas wiped at his face.

  Then, quite remarkably, as his outstretched hand trembled inches away from the snout at the line-up’s centre, the creature began to back away. As if they’d choreographed the whole thing, the beasts parted, and fell clumsily to their knees. The way was suddenly clear.

  Nicholas didn’t pause to ponder this new oddity. He beat his shoes into the wet ground and ran all the way home without looking back.

  Later, Tabatha made them dinner, but Nicholas had no appetite. He put his plate in the sink and slunk off to his room.

  When evening arrived, he lazed in the lounge, where the hearth crackled and the double-glazing dulled the thrum of the storm. He sat on the window seat, peering out across the overcast Common. The cows were back under their tree again, sheltering against the showers.

  Tabatha was curled up on the sofa reading a women’s magazine, the cover of which was ornamented with articles like ‘Make Your Own Teapot Cosy!’ and ‘Try The Sat Fat Diet – Lose Weight In Just Two Weeks!’

  “Have you ever made a teapot cosy?” he asked.

  “What? Oh, I think I tried once,” Tabatha deliberated.

  “And?”

  Tabatha looked embarrassed. “I use it to clean the windows.”

  “Nicholasssss.”

  Nicholas’s head jerked as a familiar whisper roved into the room.

  “Did you hear that?”

  “Hear what?”

  “I thought I heard a noise,” Nicholas said.

  “It’s just the storm.” Tabatha tutted and shook her head, her spaghetti hair bouncing. “Most bizarre thing I’ve ever seen in all my life – a whole week of rain and snow, right in the middle of August! Global warming my left bum cheek. I thought we’d be getting some tropical weather out of it, but it seems like the complete opposite.”

  Nicholas frowned, drawn to the lounge door. He left the window seat.

  “I’ll be back in a minute,” he said.

  At the foot of the stairs in the hall, Nicholas found the whispers were even louder.

  “Who’s there?” he called out. He started up the staircase, following the echoes. Presently, he was in front of his parents’ bedroom door again, just as before. He didn’t pause this time, pushing open the door.

  Silence. The whispers had stopped.

  Nicholas stepped inside and closed the door, turning the key in the lock. He moved immediately to the far wall, determination fuelling him. He didn’t question what was driving him, didn’t stop to wonder what force was pushing him to search the wall so purposefully.

  He looked at the framed picture on the wall, as if seeing it for the first time. Normally he’d have kicked himself for being so stupid, but not this time. There wasn’t time. Tomorrow he’d be leaving the house, and with it the mysteries that were surely hidden behind this very wall. He reached up and lifted the frame from its hook.

  There it was, like he had known it would be.

  A small hollow had been chiselled out of the plaster, and in it rested a simple-looking brass lever. Nicholas’s mouth went dry. Whatever lay on the other side of this wall had to hold the answers about his parents. It just had to.

  Shaking, Nicholas put his hand into the hollow and pushed the lever down. There came a click, a muted chugging of chains and a section of the wall fell open like a door.

  Dislodged dust puffed out into the bedroom.

  Nicholas stepped forward, pushing the door-like part of the wall, and entered the room beyond the wall.

  It was a small, shabby-looking study. A smell of air gone stale festered here; that wet, musty aroma that always lingered in places of great age. Pushed against one wall was a lavish oak desk. A writing pad was strewn with papers, and the bureau came equipped with too many drawers to count. The opposite wall was concealed by an enormous bookcase that was crammed full with decrepit-looking volumes. Lastly, the back wall housed an immense oil painting that depicted a forest setting in which strange, squat creatures frolicked and laughed.

  Nicholas surveyed the room in wonderment, the stale odours making him light-headed. How had he never known this was here? He wondered if his parents had been aware of it – and then he remembered the framed photo hanging on the wall, and knew that they had. The thought that his parents had kept secrets from him struck him anew, and a curious mixture of annoyance and regret mingled inside of him. Had they created this odd little study themselves? And if so, what for?

  Stepping further inside, the boy ran his fingers along the bookshelves. They came away caked in dirt. He didn’t notice, instead absorbing the titles resting there: March Of The Three, Esus: A History, Dimensions And Damnation, and finally The Sentinel Chronicles, of which there were a great many instalments.

  Nicholas didn’t know what any of these titles could mean, but there were hundreds more. He pulled The Sentinel Chronicles, Volume IV, October 1983 from the shelf. The cover was engraved with a silver raven, its wings outspread in flight. He flipped through the pages.

  15 OCTOBER, 1983

  William Harvey of Bridge Street reported a disturbance at approximately 11:30pm. After hearing a noise in his back garden, he carried out a search of the premises, but no intruder was discovered. Harvey did report, however, the detection of a strange black substance around the base of his dustbin. After analysing the samples provided by Harvey, it is our belief that this substance was in fact the same saliva discovered at the scene of the Milton murders not two weeks hence.

  Nicholas grimaced. What sort of book was this?

  Realising that any second Tabatha could come looking for him, he moved over to the desk. He scoured the papers there, noting a number of different handwritings – some belonging to his parents, others seemingly older and more studied. There were strange diagrams, none of which Nicholas could make sense of, as well as a constellation chart, a dried-up inkwell and an assortment of fountain pens.

  His attention bent to a large drawer at the base of the unit – the only one equipped with a lock. He tried the handle, ever optimistic. It didn’t open. Curiosity suitably aroused, Nicholas pulled open the other drawers, pushing aside small notebooks and sketchpads in search of a key. There was none.

  Nicholas sat on the floor with a thump, i
rritated. Where would somebody hide a key for a drawer? Struck with an idea, he crouched down to peer under the desk and then reached a hand underneath, feeling the underbelly of the unit. His fingers touched something. Eagerly he pulled, ripping at the masking tape and when his hand emerged from under the desk, a small golden key winked in it. It was a trick his father had used often. Nicholas had told him numerous times that it was stupid to tape a key so close to the lock it fitted, but he was grateful for it now.

  He slotted the key into the lock. “Please work,” he said quietly to himself. He waited a second. There was a click and the drawer opened.

  Nicholas peered inside. Brown paper stared up at him from the bottom of the drawer. A parcel, neatly wrapped. Written simply across it was: To Nicholas, on his sixteenth birthday.

  It was his mother’s handwriting.

  Nicholas’s body shook with nerves. Swallowing, he reached into the drawer and pulled the parcel out. He sat cross-legged on the floor, setting the parcel on his lap. It would be his sixteenth birthday in a couple of weeks; was this a present from his parents? He stared at it for what seemed like an eternity, wondering at its contents, prolonging the unwrapping so that he could savour the final gift that he would ever receive from his parents.

  Finally, he began to pull apart the brown paper. Piece by piece it fell away, until two green velvet boxes were revealed. The first was the size of a cigar case, and he could hear something rattling inside. The second was larger, about the size of a jewellery box, but flatter.

  He concentrated on the smaller box first, prising it open. The hinges gave a satisfying creak.

  Resting on the soft velvet interior was a silver pendant. It was shaped like a raven, wings spread in mid-flight and laced onto a chain. Nicholas looked at the volume of The Sentinel Chronicles resting beside him. It was adorned with the same symbol. He pulled the pendant from the box and it twinkled in the light from the bedroom. His mother had worn one identical to this, he remembered. He wondered what its significance could possibly be. Why had he never asked her why she wore hers? Carefully, he returned the pendant to its box, turning to the second gift.

  Except this one wouldn’t open. No matter how long he searched for a small fastening, there was none. He tapped it on the floor gently, hoping that an invisible seal would give, but to no avail.

  A knock sounded from the bedroom door.

  Startled, Nicholas dropped the box.

  “Nicholas? Are you in there?”

  Tabatha’s voice came through from the other side.

  Nicholas got to his feet, hurrying back into his parents’ room, then to the bedroom door. “I’m here,” he said. “Give me a minute.”

  Panicked, he rushed back into the hidden study. Gathering up the two velvet boxes and the October 1983 edition of The Sentinel Chronicles, he placed them under his parents’ bed, hoping that Tabatha wouldn’t check under there before he could retrieve them later. Then he moved to the door in the wall and went to pull it closed… but it wouldn’t move.

  His blood froze.

  “Nicholas? Is everything alright?” Tabatha called. The door handle juddered. “I can hear funny noises. Why have you locked the door?”

  Nicholas put all his weight into pulling the wall-door, but it refused to close.

  “Nicholas?” The bedroom door handle jerked violently. “Will you let me in?” There was panic in Tabatha’s voice now.

  “Come on, come on,” Nicholas breathed. Then he remembered the hollow in the middle of the wall-door and he inwardly scolded himself. In all his haste, he had forgotten how he had opened the door in the first place.

  Reaching into the alcove, he tugged the brass handle upwards. The familiar sound of creaking cogs came and the door slowly sealed itself up.

  Hurriedly, Nicholas placed the framed picture back on its hook.

  “Nicholas?”

  He hastened over to the bedroom door and unlocked it. It opened from the other side as Tabatha let herself in.

  “Is everything okay?” she asked.

  “Fine,” Nicholas said. “I just… needed a moment in here. Before I leave tomorrow.”

  Tabatha relaxed, seeing for herself that he was okay. “Thank God, I thought… well I don’t know what I thought. Come on down, won’t you? The TV’s on the fritz again.”

  Nicholas nodded and they both left the room.

  With growing unease, the boy realised he had simply unearthed yet more questions about his parents.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  House Call

  THE DOORBELL COULDN’T HAVE CHIMED AT a worse time.

  Richard Walden was standing on the landing, rapping at a closed door with mounting annoyance.

  “Dad, are you going to let me in?”

  “Go away!” came the muffled response.

  Richard sighed and used the doorframe to prop up his exhausted body. A hand went absentmindedly to his glasses, which he rearranged on the bridge of his nose – a habitual sign of his frustration. For a man in his early thirties he looked younger. He was scruffy and unkempt – traits that his fellow university professors deeply disapproved of – and if he’d been younger, those qualities would probably be mistaken for cool. But Richard wasn’t cool. In fact, he was deeply uncool.

  Richard didn’t care about being cool. That was painfully evident in his rebelliously untamed hair and his unfashionable eyewear. He was thin, too. Almost too thin – apart from a swelling belly that hinted he relied on an evening beer to digest the trials of the day.

  Richard wasn’t cool.

  He was, if anybody cared to notice, a despairing man at his wits end.

  “Dad, please. You can’t stay in there forever.”

  “I ain’t comin’ out.”

  Richard’s jaw clenched and he tried not to let the situation rile him as it always did. It was moments like these that made him think Lucy could be right. Perhaps his father should be moved to a hospice. The nurses there were sure to have far more patience than he did. Plus there were more of them. Here it was just him and Lucy. An army of two.

  Juggling his father’s daily care with a demanding job was beginning to wear them both down. Not only that, it was putting a strain on their marriage. But he’d seen those places, where old people sat around like living dolls and well-meaning nurses mopped their mouths and changed their clothes for them. He wouldn’t have his father in a place like that. Not yet, anyway.

  “It’s only vegetables,” Richard persisted. He hoped he was using the soothing voice that Lucy always encouraged him to. “You like potatoes.”

  “Mutiny!” came the shrill reply. “My own son trying to put the kibosh on his old man!”

  Crashes and bangs came through the door – drawers no doubt being ripped from the dresser, objects being stomped into the carpet. Richard dreaded to think what his father was doing and chastised himself for not removing the lock sooner. He supposed it had slipped his mind what with everything that was going on.

  “We’re not trying to poison you, dad,” Richard said. “Just come out and we’ll fix you something else.”

  “Where’s Agnes?” the voice raged. “I want Agnes.”

  Despairing, Richard closed his eyes, resting his forehead against the door. Every now and again his father would forget that his wife was dead, and every time Richard had to explain it to him. The confused expression that clouded his father’s features was always heartbreaking.

  “She’s not here, Dad,” Richard said. “Now come and eat, please.”

  “Never!”

  Richard opened his eyes as a hand touched his arm. Lucy was beside him.

  “No luck?” she asked. She was, if anything, the complete opposite of her husband. Her blonde hair shone in salon-styled tresses and her cheeks always possessed a rosy just-pinched glow. She was, even to this day, the most beautiful woman Richard had ever met. He used to wonder (and still did occasionally) why she’d ever shown any interest in him – why she’d even noticed him, let alone spoken to him that day at th
e charity event.

  “He hasn’t been like this for weeks,” Richard said, pushing his glasses up again. “I don’t understand what set him off.”

  “Could’ve been anything. The doctor said he could turn at any moment, with no real reason That’s the way it goes.”

  “I hate this,” Richard said, his face scrunching up. “I hate that my own father doesn’t recognise us half the time.”

  Lucy kissed him. “Don’t let it get to you,” she said softly. “It’ll pass, you know it will. And then we’ll have the fun of tidying up!”

  Richard tried to smile, but he found it hard to look at her. He was a failure.

  “Maybe it’s time to give St. Mary’s a ring.”

  Richard pulled away from her. “What?”

  “It’s been six months, Rich. We’ve tried our best, we really have. But... I just don’t think it’s working.”

  “I don’t believe it. He’s sick, and you want to stick him in one of those homes?”

  “Can’t you see what this is doing to you?”

  He didn’t respond.

  “Well I can, and I can’t just sit by and watch anymore.”

  The muscle in her jaw flickered the way it did when she was holding back, trying not to be as forthright as she could be. He was too angry to find it endearing. She reached out for his hand and he moved out of the way, his throat reddening.

  “What are you saying?” he demanded quietly.

  “I think it’s time we thought seriously about moving your father into St. Mary’s Hospice,” Lucy relented. She sounded as crestfallen as he felt.

  It was at this moment that the doorbell chimed downstairs.

  Richard paid it no attention.

  “I can’t believe you’re saying this,” he said, searching her face for some sign that she was joking, or at the very least that she could be convinced otherwise. “I thought we agreed to look after him.”