Gallows at Twilight

by William Hussey

  For Grace and Noah Lewis-Bettison

  & Eleanor Bettison

  Great Clarendon Street, Oxford OX2 6DP

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  © William Hussey 2011

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  First published in 2011

  First published in this eBook edition 2011

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  ISBN: 978-0-19-273279-8

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  Contents

  THEN 1645 The House of Bones

  1  The Lost Art of Magic

  2  Blades of Her Ancestors

  3  Death Scream

  4  Lair of the Skinwalker

  5  Face of Flies

  6  Terror in the Tunnel

  7  The Ghost of the Grimoire

  8  Hypnosis Horror

  9  Creatures of the Pit

  10  The Serpent Inside

  11  Fire from the Sky

  12  Evil Unleashed

  13  The Man with the Forked Tongue

  14  The Scarab Path

  15  The Burning Boy

  16  Trapped in Time

  17  Demonic Deception

  18  The Nightmare Begins

  19  The Subtle Art of Torture

  20  Watched, Walked, Swum

  21  The Devil’s Disciple

  22  Revelation of the Claviger

  23  The Gallows Hour

  24  Fight and Flight

  25  The Blind Man of Starfall

  26  Secrets and Surprises

  27  Lure of the Signum

  28  The Pursuing Shadow

  29  Army of the Dead

  30  Rhapsody in Darkness

  31  Jake’s Sacrifice

  32  The Witch Ball

  33  Twilight

  34  Hellbound Hopes

  THEN 1645 The Home of Demons

  Then: 1645

  The House of Bones

  ‘She is coming, my sisters. The poor, doomed child … ’

  The witch’s foot danced on the pedal of the spinning wheel.

  ‘Her stomach is as empty as a leper’s begging bowl and her feet are bare and bleeding,’ the witch continued. ‘Though she is but twelve years old she has cried all the tears of a long-lived life. And now, through heartache and hardship, she has come to our door. Death has found her at last.’

  With her right hand the witch teased an invisible strand away from the hissing wheel. The magically woven thread passed from her fingers as a funnel of smoke. It spread out, coiling and condensing, until it had grown into a wall of cloud. Inside this foggy screen, a figure moved. A child, lost in a forest. The cloud crackled and the girl emerged from between the trees and stepped under the shadow of the manor house.

  ‘She is here.’

  Lizzie Redfern grasped the lion’s head knocker. She tried to lift the heavy brass ring clasped between the lion’s teeth, but the effort sapped the last of her strength. Her legs gave way and she tumbled down, smacking her face against the cold stone step. Lizzie felt no pain. She was beyond any sense or feeling now.

  Dimly, she heard the rasp of a bolt and the weary grumble of the door. Candlelight dazzled. A figure stooped down, its ivory face pinched with concern. Arms encircled Lizzie and picked her from the ground. A rush of words wafted into her ear—

  ‘Here you are, my dear, just as my clever sister foretold. But you are such a little thing! Come now, into the warmth and the light.’

  The sound of the unknown lady’s dress was like the rustle of a half-remembered lullaby. Twice Lizzie mustered the energy to open her eyes. She saw glimpses of a gloomy hall festooned with spider webs and the sweep of a big, dusty staircase. The lady did not seem to feel her burden. With Lizzie secure in her arms, she ghosted through the house. At last, they came to one of the upper rooms.

  ‘Drude, my dear, I have brought our guest.’

  The creak of another door and the glare of another candle.

  ‘Oh, but she is so thin, Lethe,’ the woman called Drude clucked. ‘Bring her straight to the table, the broth is ready.’

  No sooner had she been sat down than Lizzie felt the tap of a spoon against her teeth. Rich, meaty stew salted her lips.

  ‘How charming,’ Lethe purred. ‘See, Drude, how she blinks in the firelight like a newborn pup.’

  Lizzie felt a second spoonful of stew wash into her mouth. Heat spread out from her stomach and spilled into her arms and legs. By the time the spoon had scraped the last of the stew from the bowl, she was sitting up and looking at her hosts.

  They had called each other ‘sister’ but Miss Drude and Miss Lethe were not at all alike. Clearly the elder of the two, Drude was dressed in a threadbare nightgown stained with splashes from the broth. Straggles of white hair poked out from beneath her nightcap and brushed against a large, warty nose. In contrast, Miss Lethe had the face of a playful imp. She wore a gown of finest yellow satin and had lacy ribbons tied in her long blonde hair.

  ‘There now,’ said Miss Drude, dabbing Lizzie’s lips with a handkerchief, ‘you must be feeling better.’

  ‘I am, thank you, ma’am.’

  ‘No need for thanks, my pet. But tell us, what has brought you to Havlock Grange on so bleak a night?’

  ‘I’ve been walking from town to town, trying to find what work I can,’ Lizzie explained. ‘I came this night to the village not far from here—Little Muchly, I think it is called. An old lady in a cottage by the river told me to go to the big house. I was to tell the ladies there that “Old Sowerberry” had sent me.’

  ‘Dear Old Sowerberry.’ Miss Drude showed a set of worn, black teeth. ‘Yes, we have an … arrangement with that lady. She sends all needy children to our door.’

  ‘Tell me, my dear,’ Miss Lethe said, ‘are you quite alone in the world?’

  ‘Yes, ma’am. My mother died giving me life. My father … ’ Lizzie’s
voice cracked. ‘He was killed the month before last at the great battle at Naseby.’

  ‘He was a soldier? For which side?’

  ‘He was a Parliament man.’

  Drude nodded sadly. ‘Even here, in our lonely house far from the world, we hear tell of this great conflict—this barbaric civil war.’

  While Drude had been speaking, Lizzie’s gaze wandered around the room. The table at which they sat occupied the centre, its surface cluttered with books, parchment, quills, candles, and a cauldron from which the broth had been served. A large curtain had been used to screen off the far end of the chamber. Within a few paces of Lizzie stood a grand stone fireplace with grotesque faces carved into its columns.

  A painting hanging above the fireplace caught Lizzie’s eye. The central figure of the picture stared down at the girl, his eyes like two dark gemstones. Aside from the sneer frozen upon his lips, the man in the painting was as beautiful as an angel.

  ‘Our brother,’ Lethe sighed. ‘Our beautiful, talented brother. How we miss him.’

  ‘Did he die?’

  ‘In a way,’ said Drude. ‘He lives still, but it is a half-life. He exists only within the Veil.’

  These words confused Lizzie. She asked, ‘What was his name?’

  ‘Marcus. Marcus Crowden … ’

  The flames of the fire quivered. Lizzie turned and saw the curtain at the end of the chamber flutter outwards.

  ‘Come,’ Miss Drude muttered. ‘Our sister calls.’

  Hands locked onto Lizzie’s shoulders. Too shocked to cry out, the girl stumbled forward as the sisters barged her through the room. They reached the curtain and Drude, no longer smiling, grasped the edge and tore it back.

  ‘This is our youngest sister. Say hello, Frija.’

  The woman sitting at the spinning wheel lifted her head. She was small—smaller even than little Lethe—and dressed entirely in black. Although a thick veil covered her face, Lizzie felt sure that Frija Crowden was looking directly at her. Frija’s fingers played through the spokes of the wheel, turning it slowly, surely.

  ‘I saw your coming, Lizzie Redfern,’ she said.

  ‘Who are you?’ Lizzie whispered.

  ‘I am the cloud spinner. My eye sees far and my hand speaks truth. See the truth I spin … ’

  Frija’s fingers teased a strand from her spinning wheel and cast it loose. The moment it left her hand, the fibre soared across the room and into a dark corner. Like a bright finger, it descended, touching on a large chest or travelling trunk. The lid was thrown back and, as the light strengthened, Lizzie caught sight of the trunk’s contents.

  Screams caught in her throat.

  ‘Old Sowerberry sends any passing child to Havlock Grange,’ Frija murmured. ‘They come to seek work, to beg a penny. They are brought in, they are fed … and they are never seen again.’

  The magically woven strand brightened.

  Arm and leg bones poked out of the trunk like the stalks of strange, headless flowers. Little skulls, some with clumps of hair still attached, grinned in the ghostly light. The sight of these remains was frightening enough, but what chilled Lizzie most were the chips and notches scored into the bones. Teeth marks. She looked back at Lethe and Drude and imagined the hungry women sitting at the table, chomping and gulping, sucking and slurping, wiping the juice from their chins. When the bones had been picked clean, they would be thrown into the chest. Such a small grave for so many children.

  Lizzie thought about the delicious stew she had just enjoyed and her gaze switched back to the table. Fear sharpened her senses and she noticed things that in the haze of hunger she had missed.

  She saw the slick, red gruel dripping down the cauldron’s belly. Smelt the faint stench of rotting flesh. Saw the chopping board at the end of the table, its blood-smattered surface littered with chunks of meat and scraps of gore. Six eel-black tongues had been heaped together, ready for dicing. A single jellied eye, shucked from a child’s head, sat upon the table and stared up at the ceiling. At one end of the chopping board, fingers and toes had been laid out like a row of little sausages.

  Lizzie covered her eyes. She could no longer look at the cannibals’ kitchen.

  ‘Such a shame,’ Lethe sighed. ‘We had intended to keep you alive for a few weeks. Fatten you up; get some flesh on those bones. But I’m afraid Frija has forced our hand. Drude, my love, will you be a dear and fetch the axe?’

  ‘NO!’

  Frija’s hands left the spinning wheel and shot out towards her sisters. Before either could respond, the spell was cast. Streams of blue light encircled the Crowden sisters, locking their legs together and snapping their arms against their sides. Frija gestured upwards and her sisters were lifted from the ground.

  ‘Treachery!’ Drude shrieked.

  Lethe smiled her sweet smile. ‘My dear Drude, you ought to know by now that Frija cannot be trusted. As soon as she spun her vision of the girl you ought to have bound her hands.’

  Frija paid her sisters no heed. She turned to Lizzie. ‘Come here, child.’

  The girl approached the black-robed figure, her eyes rooted on the thick veil.

  ‘You see the coin resting there below the bobbin? Take it and run.’

  The coin glinted in the firelight, bright and golden. Despite all the impossible things Lizzie had seen this night, this seemed the most miraculous. It was a double crown: more money than her father would have earned from a year of soldiering.

  She reached for the witch. ‘Come with me.’

  ‘I cannot. I … I must never be seen. Please, you must hurry.’

  Lizzie clasped the coin to her chest. She cast one last, sorrowful look at her saviour and ran from the house.

  The witches collapsed to the ground.

  ‘Sentimental idiot!’ Drude moaned, picking herself up. ‘Now we will have to clear the house of bones, just in case the little wretch tells the constable and—’

  ‘Hush, sister,’ Lethe hissed. ‘See, she is spinning again.’

  Their anger momentarily forgotten, Lethe and Drude gathered around their more gifted sister. Frija’s foot rocketed up and down upon the pedal, working the wheel so fast that its whistle could be heard in every corner of the house. Her hands were a blur as she spun the fibre into a pitch-black cloud. Lethe and Drude looked at each other: they had never seen their sister spin a vision of such intensity.

  ‘He is coming!’ Frija’s voice lost its sadness. Now it was cold, hollow. ‘Very soon now he will begin his long journey.’

  An image formed in the cloud. A boy—tall, thin, brown hair falling across his eyes. Eyes that seemed to fix upon the Crowden sisters. He stretched out his hand towards them, as if casting a spell.

  Lethe and Drude fell back.

  ‘He is coming to find us, sisters. The boy conjuror. The Witchfinder.’ Frija’s eyes dazzled. ‘Jacob Harker … ’

  NOW

  Chapter 1

  The Lost Art of Magic

  Jake stepped off the road and into the dark embrace of the trees. Stalks of yellow grass rattled against his shins as he scrambled down a bank of loose earth. He hit the ground, paused for a moment, and breathed in the stillness of the forest. Save for the shimmer of moonlight between the branches, nothing stirred. Not an animal, not an insect, not a bird. He had expected someone—something—to be waiting for him; a lurking, monstrous presence that would fall upon him as soon as he set foot in its domain. But there was nothing here—just silence, darkness, and the reek of decay.

  He sucked down the mouldy forest air and whistled. A second later, he heard footfalls on the bank.

  ‘Over here,’ he hissed. ‘Follow my voi—’

  Something shifted in the darkness. It lashed out and hit Jake like a jolt of electricity, surged inside his head, tumbled and roared in his brain. He could hear nothing, see nothing, beyond that single overwhelming force.

  Evil.

  In response, a pale blue light appeared between his fingers. Jake managed a weak smile and tu
rned to the others. He took a tattered map from his pocket, ran his finger over the page, and pointed east.

  ‘Two miles till we reach the grounds, then another mile to the Crowden house. Stay close.’

  Comforted by the sight of his magic, his father and Rachel Saxby nodded and followed Jake into the shadows.

  They had gone a little way, their feet crackling over a carpet of dead leaves, when Jake held up his hand. Rachel and Adam came to a halt.

  ‘Something’s not right,’ Jake said. ‘The colour of the forest—it’s different.’

  Rachel peered into the gloom. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Shhh. There’s something up ahead.’

  The evil that haunted the forest had changed. No longer an invisible force, Jake saw it as a colour running through the trees—a sickly grey smoke, the shade of a rotten egg or maggoty meat. It had a smell, too, that reminded Jake of the day when the sewers of New Town had burst and the filth of a thousand homes had been spewed into the streets. But this was not the only change he noticed. Some distance from where they stood, a lonesome powder-blue light shone between the trunks of the trees. This new colour stood out against the grey evil like a lantern’s glow. A familiar fragrance accompanied the colour: citrus and jasmine.

  Jake breathed easy. ‘It’s Pandora.’

  At the sound of her name, that handsome, eight-armed woman, who had once mustered an army and saved Adam and Jake from the clutches of the evil coven master Marcus Crowden, emerged into the light. Jake smiled and hurried to greet his friend. It had been only a few weeks since their first meeting in the back office of Crowden’s bookshop, and yet it felt as if he had known Pandora for years. She had become a regular visitor to the Harker home, teaching Jake and Rachel the ways of the dark creatures and explaining some of the mysteries of her world. Already it was difficult to think of life without Pandora.