It was a mile to the village. Matt quickly arrived at the broken sign where the five roads met. The wood was all around him and he was glad that Mrs Deverill had shown him which road to take, as they all looked the same. No cars passed. Nothing moved. Matt had never felt more alone as he pedalled on. The last part of the road was uphill and he had to work to get the bike to the top. Despite the oil, he could hear it groaning beneath him. But ahead of him he could see the outer buildings of Lesser Malling and before long he pulled into the village square.
Mrs Deverill had already warned him that there wasn’t much to Lesser Malling and she was certainly right. The village was small and self-contained with a dull, half-dilapidated church, a pub called The Goat and two rows of shops and houses facing each other across an empty, cobbled area. A war memorial stood in the middle, a slab of grey stone engraved with twenty or thirty names. All of the shops looked fifty years out of date. One sold sweets, the next general groceries, another antiques. At the end of the row was a butcher’s. Matt could see chickens hanging by their feet, their necks broken. Slabs of meat, grey and sweating, lay spread out on the counter. A large man with a beard and a blood-splattered apron chopped down with an axe. Matt heard the metal as it sliced through bone.
There were quite a few people around and as he rested the bicycle against the war memorial, more of them appeared, coming from all sides of the square. Matt sensed that they had been drawn here because of him. Their faces were more curious than welcoming. He saw them stop, some distance away, and whisper among themselves. It was unnerving, being the centre of attention in this forgotten community. He had no doubt that they all knew exactly who he was and why he was here.
A woman walked towards him and she seemed familiar. She had long white hair, a tiny head and black eyes that could have belonged to a doll. As she came nearer, he saw that she had been disfigured by a birthmark. An ugly mauve blotch covered one side of her face. He thought back to when he was ill. Had this woman been in his room at Hive Hall?
She walked right up to him. “How nice to see you back on your feet, Matthew,” she said. She had a squeaky, rasping voice and seemed to strangle the words at the back of her throat. “My name is Claire Deverill. You’re staying with my sister.”
So he was right. He had seen her before.
“I am the head teacher at the primary school here in Lesser Malling,” she went on. “You may be joining us soon.”
“I’m too old for primary school,” Matt said.
“But too stupid, I’m afraid, for secondary school. I’ve seen your reports. You’ve done no work. You know very little. Not a good example for the other children.”
Another woman – tall and thin – had appeared, pushing an antique pram. The wheels squeaked as they turned. “Is this the boy?” she demanded.
“It is indeed, Miss Creevy.” Claire Deverill smiled.
Matt glanced down at the pram. There was no baby. Miss Creevy was nursing a large china doll. It looked up at Matt with a frozen smile and wide, empty eyes.
“I’m looking for the chemist,” Matt said. Suddenly he wanted to be out of here. He was beginning to wish he’d never come.
“It’s over there.” Claire Deverill pointed. “Next to the sweet shop.”
Two more women had appeared on the far side of the village, in front of the church. They looked like ragged scarecrows, their black coats flapping in the breeze. They were identical twins. At the same time, a short, fat man with blue and green tattoos on his arms, face and head stepped out of the pub. He was smoking a clay pipe. He saw Matt and began to laugh. Matt walked away before he could get too close.
It was no surprise really that everyone in Lesser Malling seemed to be a little mad. You’d have to be to live in a place as forlorn as this, Matt thought. There was a pond near the church and he noticed a group of children feeding the ducks. He went over to them but as soon as he was close he saw that he was going to find no friends here. There was a ten-year-old boy with strange, greenish hair and fat legs bulging out of short trousers. A couple of girls – sisters – stood together in identical, old-fashioned dresses and pigtails. The last boy was about seven and crippled, one of his legs enclosed in a metal calliper. Matt would have felt sorry for him but as he approached, the boy pulled out a BB gun and, smiling, took aim at the ducks. Quickly Matt kicked out, sending loose gravel into the water. The ducks flew away. The boy fired at them and missed.
“What did you do that for?” one of the girls demanded sulkily.
“What are you doing?” Matt asked.
“We feed the ducks and then Freddy kills them,” the other girl explained. “It’s a game!”
“A game?”
“Sitting ducks!” both girls chorused.
Freddy reloaded the gun. Matt shook his head in disgust. He left the children and walked back to the chemist.
The shop was like nothing he had ever seen before: a dark, evil-smelling place with rows of wooden shelves. There were some boxes of headache pills and a few packets of soap, but mostly the shelves were stacked with old bottles. Some of these were filled with powders, some with dried herbs. Others contained strange, lumpy objects, floating in murky water. Matt read some of the handwritten labels: Nux Vomica. Aconite. Wormwood. They meant nothing to him. He found a flask filled with yellow liquid and turned it round, then almost cried out as a severed eye floated to the surface, kissing the edge of the glass. The eye had been taken from a sheep or a cow. It was trailing tissue behind it. Matt felt sick.
“Can I help you?”
It was the chemist; a short, ginger-haired man in a shabby white coat. The hair continued down his neck and there was more of it on the backs of his hands. He was wearing heavy black spectacles, which had sunk into his nose in such a way that Matt wondered if he ever took them off.
“What is this?” Matt demanded.
“An eye.”
“Why is it here?”
The chemist turned the jar round and examined the specimen, his own eyes magnified by the lenses. “The vet requested it,” he said. He sounded irritated. “He was doing tests.”
“I’ve come to collect something for Mrs Deverill.”
“Oh yes. You must be Matthew then. We’ve all been looking forward to meeting you. We’ve all been looking forward to it very much.”
The chemist produced a small package, wrapped in brown paper and tied with string. “My name is Barker. I hope I’ll be seeing more of you. In a village like this, it’s always nice to have new blood.” He handed the packet over. “Do drop in again any time.”
Matt came out of the shop, noticing that more of the villagers had arrived in the square. There were at least a dozen of them, talking among themselves. He hurried over to the bike. There was a bag behind the saddle and he thrust the package in. He just wanted to get back on the road, away from the village. But it wasn’t to be. As he wheeled the bicycle round, a hand suddenly appeared, grabbing hold of the handle-bars. Matt followed the arm it belonged to and found himself looking up at a man in his thirties with straw-coloured hair and a round, ruddy face. He was dressed in a baggy jersey and jeans. He was strong. Matt could tell that from the ease with which he held the bike.
“Let me go!”
Matt tried to pull the bike away but the man held on to it. “That’s not very friendly,” he said. “What’s your name?”
“Why do you want to know?”
“You’re Matthew Freeman, aren’t you?”
Matt said nothing. They were both still holding the bike. It had become a barrier between them.
“They sent you here on this project?”
“That’s right. Yes. You all know that – so why ask?”
“Listen to me, Matthew Freeman,” he said suddenly. “You don’t want to be hanging around this village. You don’t want to be anywhere near here. Do you understand me? I shouldn’t be talking to you like this. But if you know what’s good for you, you’ll get away. You’ll go as far away as you can and you won’t come b
ack. Do you hear me? You need to-”
He broke off. The chemist had come out of his shop and was standing there in the doorway watching the two of them. The man let go of Matt’s bike and hurried away. He didn’t look back.
Matt got on to the bicycle and pedalled out of the village. Ahead of him, the pine trees waited, black and ominous. Already it was growing dark.
WHISPERS
Matt was standing on a tower of glistening stone. It was the dead of night but somehow he could still see. Far beneath him the waves rolled forward as if in slow motion, thick and oily. There were rocks slanting outwards, each one razor-sharp. The waves hovered, then threw themselves forward, tearing themselves apart. The wind howled. There was a storm raging. Jagged spears of lightning crashed down – but the lightning was black not white – and now he realized that the entire world had been turned inside out, like the negative of a photograph.
In the distance, he could see four people, standing on a grey, deserted beach. Three boys and a girl, all of them about his own age. They were too far away for him to be able to see their faces, but somehow he recognized them and knew they were waiting for him. He had to reach them, but there was no way. He was trapped on his tower of rock. The storm was growing and now there was something dark and terrible stretching out across the sea. A giant wing that was folding around him. The girl was calling to him.
“Matthew! Matthew!”
The wind caught the two words and tossed them aside. The girl pleaded with him but time was running out for her too. The beach cracked and began to break up. Dark crevices appeared, the sand spilling into them. The waves were rushing in. The four of them were trapped, unable to move.
“I’m coming!” Matt called.
He took a step towards them and stumbled, then twisted forward and fell. He cried out. But there was nothing to stop him. Everything spun as he plummeted through the night sky, down towards the sea.
Matt woke up with a start.
He was lying in bed at Hive Hall. He could make out the wooden beams on the ceiling, the dried flowers in their vase on the chest of drawers. There was a full moon, the pale light washing through the room. For a moment he lay still, thinking about his dream. He had dreamt it many times, not just at Hive Hall but before. It was always the same, apart from two things. Each time, the presence he had felt forming itself – the folding wing or whatever it was – had come a little closer to taking shape. And each time, he woke up a few seconds later, a few centimetres nearer the end of his fall. He wondered what would happen if he didn’t wake up in time.
He looked at his watch, turning it to the window to check. It was almost midnight. It had been ten o’clock when he went to bed. What had woken him up? He had been exhausted by the day’s work and should have slept through.
And then he heard it.
It was faint and far away, and yet still quite clear, carried on the stillness of the night. It came from the wood, sliding over the silver tips of the trees under the moonlight.
Whispering.
At first Matt thought it was nothing more than the wind rustling through the branches, but there was no wind. And as he threw back the cover and sat up in bed, he heard another sound. It was underneath the whispers, constant and unchanging. A soft, electronic hum. The whispers stopped, then started again. The hum went on.
Despite himself, Matt felt the hairs on the back of his neck begin to prickle. The sounds were far away but the horrible thing was that they could have been coming from somewhere inside the building. They were all around him. He got out of bed and went over to the window.
The moon slid behind a cloud and for a moment everything was dark. Yet there was a light. In the surrounding darkness, somewhere not far from the edge of the wood, he could see a faint glow. The light was being swallowed up by the trees, hemmed in on all sides. However, some of it had escaped through gaps in the branches and had spread out, the cold white shafts evaporating in the air. It was electric, not the light of a fire. And it seemed to be coming from the same source as the sound.
Who was there? What could be happening in the middle of a Yorkshire wood – and could it have something to do with the warning he had been given only that afternoon?
“You don’t want to be anywhere near here. Do you understand me?”
Suddenly Matt wanted to know – and almost before he had worked out what he was doing he had put on his clothes, opened the door and slipped out. He paused for a moment, listening for any sound within the farmhouse. Mrs Deverill’s room was at the end of the corridor. The door was closed and Matt had never seen inside her room. He guessed she would be sound asleep. She always went to bed at exactly half past nine. The last thing he wanted to do was wake her up. Moving more carefully now, he tiptoed down the stairs and into the living room. Again, the portrait of Mrs Deverill’s ancestor watched him as he made for the front door. Its eyes almost seemed to follow him. The face was dark and secretive.
It was cold in the yard. Nothing stirred. Matt could hear the whispers more clearly now. They seemed not only louder but closer. He could even make out some of the words – not that they made any sense.
“NODEB… TEMOCMOD… EMANY… NEVAEH… NITRA.”
The strange sounds danced around him as he stood there, alone in the night. They were human whispers. Human and yet at the same time unworldly. He wondered what to do. Part of him wanted to get out the bicycle and try to get nearer. Part of him wanted to go back to bed and forget the whole thing. And then he noticed something that he should have seen straight away.
Mrs Deverill’s car wasn’t there.
The Land Rover was always parked in the same place, next to the barn, and it had been there at dinner time. Could she have left Hive Hall? Was she somewhere in the wood, part of whatever it was that was going on? Was Matt alone at the farm?
He went back into the living room. The portrait was the first thing he noticed and this time he knew it wasn’t his imagination: it had definitely changed a second time. The figure had raised a hand and a skeletal finger was now pointing upwards, as if ordering him to bed. Matt was certain it hadn’t been painted that way.
Matt did go upstairs, but not to his own room. He had to know if he was right, even though he dreaded what he must do. He crept to the end of the corridor and knocked gently on Mrs Deverill’s door. There was no reply. He knocked a second time, louder. Then he opened the door.
He found himself looking into a cold, empty room with bare floorboards and an iron bed. There was a wardrobe and a chest of drawers but little else. The bed was empty. He was right. Mrs Deverill wasn’t here. At last he’d been given the opportunity he needed.
Matt had already decided he was going back to London. Now he knew it was going to happen tonight. By daybreak he would have reached the motorway and he would hitch-hike south. He had no doubt that Mrs Deverill would call the police, but the further away he managed to get, the harder it would be for them to find him. Once he reached London, he would be safe. But he needed cash. Money was the difference between survival and constant danger. He would have to buy food. He’d need to find a room. There must be money in the house. He would find it and steal it now.
He began in the kitchen. No longer caring how much noise he made, he rifled through the drawers and cupboards, opened jars and boxes, trying to work out where Mrs Deverill kept her housekeeping funds. He could still hear the whispering, although it was more intermittent now. Was it coming to an end? He glanced at his watch. A quarter past one. He moved more quickly, afraid that the woman could return at any time. There was no money in the room. He looked for her handbag. A handbag would mean cash and possibly credit cards. But she must have taken it with her.
He tried the living room. Now the portrait seemed to watch angrily as he searched, looking behind the books and under the chairs in the hope that Mrs Deverill might have tucked her purse away. Matt hadn’t turned on the lights – Noah might still be in the barn and he was afraid of giving himself away. He was crossing over to look
around the fireplace when something screamed at him, sending him back, his heart pounding. It was Asmodeus, Mrs Deverill’s cat. It had been asleep on one of the chairs but now it was standing up, as if electrocuted, its fur bristling, its eyes ablaze. It opened its mouth and hissed, revealing a set of white fangs. Matt stood still. The cat was going to attack him. He was sure of it. It was already bracing itself, the claws of its two front paws ripping at the material, practising what it was going to do to his face.
Matt looked around. There was a poker next to the fire; a heavy antique thing. He thought of snatching it up but wasn’t sure he could bring himself to use it. The cat’s tail whipped briefly. Its eyes had never left him. He had dared to abuse Mrs Deverill’s hospitality and now he was going to pay. The cat hissed a second time and leapt.
Matt was ready for it. There was a large basket beside the poker. Normally it would contain logs but for once it was empty. Matt grabbed it and threw it down over the cat even as it left the chair. He heard a terrible screaming and yowling, felt the claws battering desperately at the straw cage. Matt slammed the basket down on to the chair, imprisoning the cat inside. Holding the basket with one hand, he reached out with the other. Mrs Deverill had an old-fashioned sewing machine which was on the floor beside the chair. Using all his strength, Matt picked it up and dropped it on top of the basket. The straw creaked. The cat hurled itself against the side. But the basket held. Asmodeus wasn’t going anywhere.
Matt straightened up. He was trembling from the shock of what had just happened. And he was suddenly aware of something else. There was no sound coming from the wood. The whispering had stopped. So far he had found nothing and he was running out of time.
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