by Rhys Jones
Ellie took a pencil and quickly did as Ruff suggested. “I, n, g, r, e, s, s,” she mouthed and scribbled at the same time. Two seconds later, she sat back and announced, “It spells ‘ingress at sunrise.’”
“Great,” Ruff said, sounding deflated. “I thought it might mean something.”
“It does mean something, obviously,” Ellie said.
Ruff collapsed into an armchair. “Well, if we have to wait until sunrise, we’ll need to get some snacks.”
But Oz was frowning. He knew this house better than anyone else. “You can see the sunrise through that window.” He pointed at one of the huge panes in the turret above.
“And the wall below it has the same pattern of twenty-six symbols as the other one,” Ellie said, walking over to it. Behind that same wall was where they’d heard the footsteps moments before.
Ruff got up, walked over to join Ellie and examined the symbols. “They are the same, but they feel different. Look here, see? These faint lines around each one? It’s like they were carved on blocks and placed here.”
“You mean, like a mosaic?” Ellie said.
“Or a jigsaw,” Ruff mused. “Maybe we could prise them out?”
Ruff tried to get his fingernail into one of the faint cracks, but the symbols had been inlaid with great workmanship and the spaces were barely visible. There was no way he could get between them. “I’ll probably need some tools,” he said.
Ellie nodded and sighed. “Or we wait until the sun comes up.”
But Oz was shaking his head. “It can’t be that difficult. Morsman built this place. It doesn’t make any sense that he set a cipher that could be read for just one small part of the day. We’re missing something. It’s another puzzle.”
“Well, ingress means entry, doesn’t it? Entry into what, though?” Ruff pondered.
“A place?” Ellie said. “Like an address?”
“Maybe, or numbers or coordinates to do with sunrise or…oh, I don’t know.” Ruff shook his head in frustration.
Oz listened to his friends voicing the words that milled about in his own head. Ruff was right. They needed some directions. He looked at the ancient globe atlas standing in the corner, with its compass symbol. He went over and spun the globe, watching the countries roll by beneath his fingers. Watching the sailing ship moving around and the compass rotating into view with each revolution…
“That’s it,” Oz said so loudly that the other two jumped. “It’s a place.”
“Like a fish?” Ruff said.
Oz pretended he hadn’t heard that. “This library is perfectly aligned on compass points. That wall,” he pointed right, “is directly north from the centre of the room. And that one…” he pointed towards where they were standing, “is where the sun comes up.”
“The sun rises in the EAST,” breathed Ellie.
“Essence, Alum, Soap and Tin,” Ruff said, running his fingers over the symbols. “Here’s essence.” He frowned at the symbol. “Funny, it looks a bit faded and worn compared to the oth…”
He didn’t get any further. The slight pressure of his finger had caused the wooden block on which the symbol was carved to move inwards slightly. Ellie caught her breath, and in a second Oz had joined her to watch with barely restrained excitement as Ruff pushed the symbol in as far as he could. It slid in a full inch and stopped. Then he did the same with the alum symbol and the soap symbol. Both slid in the exact same amount and clicked to a stop.
“Oz,” said Ruff, his voice a low murmur, “I reckon you should do the last one.”
Trembling slightly, Oz put his finger on the tin symbol and pushed. This time, when it stopped moving, there was a faint but definite click, followed by a discernible creak, and the whole six-foot-by-six-foot panel in front of them gaped open an inch on one side.
“Awesome,” Oz said.
“I knew it! I knew there’d be something behind these panels,” Ruff added triumphantly.
“Ingress,” Ellie whispered in awe. “The way in.”
Beyond the door was a very narrow passageway, just wide enough for someone to get through sideways. Ruff stuck his head in.
“Wow, looks like they built this inside the walls.”
Ellie immediately edged forward, but Oz stopped her.
“Let me get some torches.” Oz ran down to his bedroom and found a couple of pen torches which, miraculously, worked. Back in the library, Ellie and Ruff looked as if they’d been arguing.
“What’s wrong?” Oz asked.
“Nothing. It’s just that…” Ruff began.
Ellie threw him a withering glance and then said, “Ruff thinks we should call someone.”
“Well, don’t you?” Ruff protested.
“I told you, my mother isn’t interested,” Oz explained. “She’s too busy partying with Heeps and Gerber.”
“Yeah, but…” Ruff frowned.
“And Caleb doesn’t answer his emails or texts, so who else is there?” Oz demanded.
The other two didn’t answer, but both wore slightly troubled expressions. Doubt suddenly clouded Oz’s mind, too. Maybe Ruff was right. None of them had any idea what was inside these walls.
But then Ellie shook her head. “Look, we’ve just found one of Penwurt’s big secrets. I mean, it’s a hidden passageway, for crying out loud! Come on, where’s your sense of adventure?”
Ruff glared at her. “Oh, that’s just typical you, isn’t it? Just doing stuff without thinking it through.” His face had gone bright red. “What if something happens? Guess who’ll be blamed for solving the cipher and opening the door…”
But Oz was sold. Having already lost the artefacts, he wasn’t about to turn away from this new opportunity to find out who the footsteps belonged to.
“Come on, let’s do it,” Oz said, and saw Ellie grin delightedly, while Ruff’s shoulders slumped. Oz went first, his feet crunching on rough stone, the torch beam picking out the thick curtains of cobwebs that hung off the walls and the roof of the narrow passage. A couple of steps in, he heard footsteps behind him as Ellie and Ruff followed. They inched their way along, and after ten yards or so they came to some steps and descended before turning sharply to find themselves in a wider walkway, this one with wooden floors which creaked ominously as they crept forward. On one side, the rough stone wall remained, but on the other, Oz’s hand brushed against a rough texture of interwoven wattle and daub. Here, it was broad enough for them to walk facing forwards.
“How far down do you think those steps were?” whispered Ruff.
“Eight feet, maybe,” said Oz.
“So that would have just about taken us to the first floor of the orphanage,” said Ellie.
Oz heard an audible gulp from Ruff. “Where we thought we heard the footsteps.”
“Not thought, did hear them,” Oz whispered excitedly. “This floor is the same one as on the other side of that wall.” He pointed at the wattle and daub. “We didn’t find any sign of footsteps in the room, because whoever they belonged to was outside in this passage all along. Someone knew…” Oz didn’t finish his sentence. Ahead of them, close by, a floorboard creaked. They froze.
“If this was an Xbox game, we could pause it and get some hot chocolate,” Ruff whispered shakily. “That usually helps.”
“Switch off your torch,” Ellie said.
“Why?” Oz said.
“Trust me.”
Oz did as Ellie asked and saw why immediately. Five yards ahead of them at floor level, a thin, rectangular strip of light suddenly appeared, the exact size and shape of a gap under a door. They crept forward, and then stopped again as they heard something that plucked at their already stretched nerves and sent their imaginations into overdrive. Something howled behind the wall. And it didn’t sound like a wolf or a dog; it sounded like nothing any one of them had ever heard before—an unearthly, wailing screech followed by an urgent, tremulous whisper.
“Oz, this is really buzzard,” Ruff hissed.
“Come on,” Oz said
, sounding a great deal braver than he felt. He turned his torch back on and aimed it at the wall above where the light had appeared. The beam picked out a rough wooden frame in the mess of plaster, mud and vegetable matter that the builders had packed between the wooden lattices. An iron ring halfway down the right side of the frame served as a handle for what was obviously a door.
Oz could feel his heart banging against his rib cage. Somehow, he knew that behind this wall lay the answer to the ghostly footsteps. And yet, he sensed that something wasn’t right here. All this time, he had harboured the secret hope that the footsteps had something to do with his father. But the noises they now heard were of something wretched, something ill at ease and disturbed.
“Ready?” Oz said, feeling his fingers tremble as he swapped the torch to his left hand. He heard both a “no” and a “yes” as a response. But there was no time for debate. Oz reached for the iron ring, turned it and pushed the door open. What light there was came from a single lantern in the centre of the room. It threw up a watery beam that showed two figures, one standing and holding something beseechingly, the other crouched on its haunches, regarding the standing figure with wild and feral terror.
Oz felt the temperature drop as they entered, but only had seconds to register the fact that it was because the sash window was wide open and freezing night air was pouring in before chaos erupted. The hunched figure jerked its head towards them, and Oz saw a pinched, filthy face and yellow teeth bared in animalistic terror. But his mind also, impossibly, registered the sleek body and banded head of a human-sized polecat shimmering around the matted fur coat the thing wore. It was only a momentary realisation as the creature let out another screech, the noise of a wild animal suddenly cornered.
Oz reached out a hand. “It’s okay. We’re not here to harm…”
The thing shifted abruptly, and from behind him Oz heard Ellie shout, “Look out, it’s going to attack!”
She leapt towards it with her foot outstretched and kicked away the arm it had thrust towards Oz. There was another scream, and before anyone could move it scurried towards the open window and leapt out into the night air.
“God, Ellie,” Ruff said in a harsh whisper, “now look what you’ve done.”
“NO!” Another wail, this time from the standing figure. It was a cry full of hopelessness and desperation that pierced Oz’s heart. The figure rushed to the window, choking back a sob. It stood for two long seconds, staring out into the night, before turning back to them with an expression of such hate that it appeared almost as inhuman as the wretch that had just leapt out. The eyes that stared up from the gaunt face were a girl’s eyes, but they burned with such a terrible, feverish brightness that for a moment Oz couldn’t place the features, so distorted were they by anguish and loathing.
But then recognition kicked in. Suddenly, Oz knew why the polecat creature had attacked them as they’d walked home from the park that night. There was no denying that the face they were now looking at and the distorted features of the creature had been molded from the same genetic clay. Oz only had a fleeting second to register all this, because his eyes darted between the hammer that wavered in one of the girl’s shaky hands and the smooth dark objects she held in the other—the obsidian pebble and the black dor. Oz felt a pressure at his back and realised that Ruff and Ellie were close behind him, but all he could think of was that insane look in the girl’s eyes and the hammer in her hand.
“You!” Lucy Bishop screamed. “This is all your fault.”
“What was that thing?” Ruff asked in a very shaky voice from behind Oz’s left ear.
“That was her brother,” Oz said without turning around.
Lucy Bishop threw back her head and let out an anguished wail.
“What?” said Ellie.
Oz didn’t take his eyes off Lucy Bishop as he spoke. “It went for us in the park because it was hungry. She was going to feed it…”
“Not an it!” hissed Lucy Bishop. “Edward, his name is Edward, and you’ve ruined any chance we had. Blundering, meddling kids.”
“What are you talking about?” demanded Ellie.
Lucy Bishop thrust out her hand and the pebble and the dor it contained. “Don’t pretend,” she spat. “Thought you could hide them, didn’t you? But I found them. Go on, deny it. Deny that you were hiding them from me.”
“They’re Oz’s, and you’ve got no right to steal them,” Ellie said, pushing Oz aside to face the distraught girl.
“His?” Lucy Bishop let out a sneering laugh. “These aren’t possessions to be bought or sold. They choose their keepers.” She kept her eyes on Oz and slowly raised the hammer, pointing it at him. “This is your curse, boy.”
Next to him, Oz felt Ruff flinch as he leaned in and whispered, “She’s gone stark raving bonkers.”
“My dad sent me the pebble,” Oz said, wishing Ruff would keep his thoughts to himself.
Lucy Bishop glared at him in utter disdain, but she didn’t reply, merely stood with the breath heaving in and out of her chest.
“What’s wrong with your brother?” Ellie asked abruptly.
Lucy Bishop’s eyes widened and she half-fell backwards, putting her hand out to the wall for support, as if the words had struck her a blow. Glancing back out of the window, she said in a choked voice, “Edward…”
“Is he ill?” Ruff asked.
Lucy Bishop let out a strangled sob, which turned into a derisory laugh as she swung back towards them. “Ill? He isn’t ill. He’s possessed. A demon has him in its clutches. A demon that has twisted his mind. Turned him into a wild creature.”
“I’m really sorry,” said Oz, “but that doesn’t give you the right to steal the pebble for Gerber.”
“Yeah, we know you’re working for him,” Ruff said.
“Gerber,” she cackled. “That monster. Never…” She trailed off in a sob.
“Was it you in here the other night?” Ellie asked suddenly. “We heard your footsteps.”
The question threw her. “I’ve never been in this accursed room before.”
“But we heard you…” Ruff began.
“What you hear is the house. It feeds on the innocent and the gullible. It’s cursed. Like you. Like these abominations.” She looked down at the pebble and the dor, her voice now a barely whispered moan of hopelessness. “I tried. I tried to use them to help Edward…” Her breath moved in and out in staccato bursts. “But it’s no use.”
Her eyes came slowly back up and fixed on Oz. “But somewhere in this house is a place where these things are vulnerable. I have to find it. They must be destroyed before they ruin another life.” “No,” Oz yelled, but it was too late. Lucy Bishop fell to her knees and threw the artefacts to the floor. In one smooth movement, the hammer in her other hand fell. Oz saw it plummet, driven by Lucy Bishop’s mad strength. But when it hit the pebble, there was no noise except the whoosh of something heavy flying through the air and Lucy Bishop’s arm swinging back as if made of rubber.
“Cursed!” she screamed. “Cursed! You see! You see!” Time and again, she brought the hammer down and time and again, there was no smashing noise of splintering metal, just the whoosh of the hammer flying back up as if it were bouncing off a trampoline. After a while she stopped and sat back, sobbing, her sweaty hair over her face like a damp curtain. She looked up again, and this time her expression had moulded into an ugly mask of real hate. “But perhaps I’m doing this all wrong. Perhaps it isn’t the artefacts I need to destroy. Perhaps it’s you and this cursed house.”
With a banshee wail she flew at Oz, the hammer held high. Oz dived to his right just as her arm came down and the hammer smashed into the door frame. He scrambled forward, half-stumbling and taken off-guard by the ferocity of Lucy Bishop’s attack. The torch flew from his hand and rolled over the floor. He turned to see her dark shape coming for him again, brandishing the hammer high above her head.
But then he saw a shadow beside him, and saw it move lithely to stand between him
and the deranged young woman. There was a whirl of limbs and an unpleasant-sounding thud as a foot connected with something soft. Oz scrambled for this torch and shone it towards the middle of the room just in time to see Ellie’s foot connecting once again in a helicopter whirl with Lucy Bishop’s head. It snapped back and Lucy Bishop staggered backwards towards the panelled wall. There was a sickening thud as she connected with the solid wood, and then she slid down like wet wallpaper, the hammer clattering heavily to the floor at her feet.
“Oz, are you okay?” Ellie asked.
Oz got to his feet and wiped dust from his knees. “Yeah, thanks to you.”
“Told you she was a ham roll short of a picnic,” Ruff said shakily, staring down at the crumpled form of Lucy Bishop. But Oz’s attention was elsewhere. He’d gone over to the corner where Lucy Bishop had tried smashing the pebble and the dor. To his utter astonishment, they weren’t smashed to smithereens. In fact, they weren’t smashed at all.
“Ruff, Ellie, look at this.” Oz held out the pebble and the dor for them to see.
“But I saw her pulverise them with the hammer,” Ellie said.
“Yeah, but there was no noise, was there?” Ruff said.
“But what does it mean?” Ellie demanded.
“I have no idea,” Oz said, shaking his head, “but I think now would be a good time to call someone. Come on.”
They went back to the passage and made their way to the gap between the walls. Oz led, but just when he arrived at the top of the steps leading to the library, he heard a voice.
“Hello? Anybody there?”
A head appeared above Oz, squinting into the torchlight.
“Tim? Tim Perkins? Is that you?”
“Heard a funny noise. Seemed to be coming from the library, and then I found this door open and…”
“You won’t believe how glad we are to see you,” Oz said with relief. “It’s Lucy Bishop, she’s…”
“Had an accident,” Ruff said quickly.
