The House on Willow Lane (Secret Gateways Book 1)

by John Moralee

  The green eye stared at Ryan. Its sudden appearance alarmed him, causing him to jerk backwards, away from the door. He fell on his backside, but he scrabbled to his feet quickly. He could see the eye staring through the keyhole. When he bent down to face it, the girl withdrew into the room a little until he could see her face, which was mostly in shadow. Despite not being able to see her well, Ryan was struck by her beauty. (Saffron had not mentioned that she was beautiful.) Her black hair fell down her face in a style that reminded him of the Mona Lisa, though she was far more attractive than Leonardo DaVinci’s model. Her nose was slender and, unlike the real Mona Lisa, she had elegantly curving dark eyebrows.

  “Who are you?” she said in an urgent whisper.

  She sounded frightened.

  “My name’s Ryan Brewster.”

  “Why are you here?”

  “I was looking for you.”

  “Me? Why?”

  “Because my friend saw you crying. We want to help you.”

  “You can’t help me,” she said. “You shouldn’t have come back. You don’t know the danger.”

  “I don’t care,” he said. He rattled the doorknob. “How can I unlock this stupid thing? Where’s the key?”

  “Forget the key. Ryan, you must go. Don’t let him catch you, please.”

  “It’s too late for that,” a voice said behind him.

  It was Lucas Ravencroft.

  *

  Ten minutes. The deadline was up. Saffron called Rachel’s phone - but instead of hearing Rachel answer she was put through to her voice-mail, which would only happen if her phone was switched off or not working. Her heart thudded. No, this could not be happening. Why wasn’t she answering? Saffron tried the number a second time, making extra, extra sure the number was correct, but it happened again. She reached the voice-mail.

  Ten minutes and forty seconds.

  She typed in 999 and pressed SEND.

  It seemed to take ages to connect.

  “Police, ambulance or fire brigade?” a woman said.

  Saffron would have liked some better options – like the SAS. She wanted James Bond to storm the building.

  “Police,” she said.

  She heard a click. Another woman spoke. “Hobley Police Station – what is the nature of your problem?”

  Saffron talked hastily without pausing for breath. “Hi, er, I’m afraid a strange man has hurt my friends. They went inside his house ten minutes ago to investigate if the girl was all right because, you see, I saw her crying and thought she was being held against her will, which it looks like she is because they haven’t come out and now I can’t get through on the phone -”

  “Miss,” the woman interrupted. “You’re talking too quickly. I can’t understand what you’re saying. I’ll need some information if I’m to help you. What’s your name?”

  “Saffron,” she said.

  “Saffron what?”

  “Hardcastle,” she said.

  “Okay, Saffron, tell me where are you?”

  “I’m in a car outside the man’s house.”

  “What’s the address?”

  “It’s number sixteen –”

  “Number sixteen?” the woman repeated.

  “Yes, number sixteen.”

  “What’s the street?”

  “It’s –”

  At that moment Saffron saw Ryan and Rachel leaving through the gates. They were saying goodbye to the owner, who was smiling. They were all right!

  “Miss?” said the policewoman. “Are you there?”

  “Uh – I’m really sorry. My mistake. They’re okay. You don’t need to send anyone. Sorry. Bye!”

  Saffron hung up. She felt embarrassed for wasting the police’s time, but also relieved that her friends were safe. She unlocked the doors as Ryan and Rachel walked up to the car. They were smiling. They climbed in without saying a word.

  “So ... is everything okay?” she asked them.

  “Yes,” Ryan replied.

  “Yes,” Rachel also said.

  “I started to panic,” Saffron admitted. “Rachel, I tried to call you, but I only got your voice-mail. Why didn’t you answer your phone?”

  Rachel turned her head to look at her. She opened her handbag and removed her phone, which looked like it had been hit by a hammer. “Unfortunately, my telephone was damaged. I dropped my handbag by accident, breaking it.”

  Saffron noticed Rachel was talking in a dead, emotionless tone. She put the broken phone back in her handbag. “I have a question for you, Saffron.”

  “What?” she said.

  “Did you call the police when we were late?”

  “I started to – but then I saw you. I hung up.”

  “So you didn’t tell anyone about the girl?”

  “No,” she said. “I didn’t.”

  “That’s good,” Rachel said. “We need to go home now.”

  “Yes,” Ryan agreed. “Start the engine.”

  His words were also lifeless, without inflection.

  Rachel engaged the engine and pulled out of the parking space. Saffron looked back at the house until it they turned the corner. Saffron thought Ryan and his sister were unusually quiet. She expected them to say something more, but they just smiled. Ryan was staring at the road ahead like she wasn’t even there next to him. She frowned. Something was wrong. Why were they so quiet? Normally Ryan would have explained everything without her needing to ask. Why was he smiling in that way? What was so amusing?

  “Did you find out why was she crying?”

  Neither answered.

  “Ryan?”

  He looked at her. “Yes?”

  “Did you actually see the girl?”

  “The girl ... yes,” he said. “She was beautiful. She reminded me of the Mona Lisa.”

  Saffron felt a flash of jealousy. She hid it by looking out of the window. “I always thought the Mona Lisa was kind of plain. What’s her name anyway?”

  Ryan paused for a second, then he answered in a toneless voice: “He did not tell me.”

  Saffron was surprised Ryan had not asked. “Was the guy her father then?”

  “Yes. His name’s Lucas Ravencroft. He’s actually a nice man, when you get to meet him properly. He’s looking after her.”

  “Looking after her?”

  “Yes,” Ryan said.

  “Why – what’s wrong with her?”

  “He says she’s not well. That is why she was crying.”

  “What’s she got?”

  “I don’t know,” he said. “He didn’t tell us that.”

  “Is it contagious?”

  Ryan didn’t answer, but his sister did. “Her father says she needs a lot of bed rest, so we mustn’t bother her again. Do you understand, Saffron?”

  “I suppose so,” she said. “I’m sorry about wasting your time, Rachel.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” Rachel said. “Now, we must forget about her and get on with our lives.”

  “Yes,” Ryan said. “We must forget about her and get on with our lives.”

  They both fell silent then. They stared ahead at the road, ignoring Saffron. She had never before felt uncomfortable in their presence. But she did now.

  Why were they speaking so woodenly?

  “Uh – can you just take me home, please?”

  “Yes,” Rachel said.

  Five minutes later, Rachel dropped Saffron off at her home. She opened her door and stepped onto the pavement outside her house. Ryan and Rachel said goodbye robotically – then drove away. Ryan didn’t even look back when the car drove off, like he normally did when his sister gave her a ride home. He didn’t even wave. He had behaved like they were strangers. In fact, Ryan and his sister hadn’t been acting like their normal selves since they came out of the man’s house. Everything they had said seemed ... rehearsed and unnatural.

  Saffron had a horrible feeling Lucas Ravencroft had done something to them.

  Unfortunately, she didn’t know what she could do abo
ut it.

  Not yet.

  Chapter Five

  “AAAAAaaaah!” someone was screaming when Saffron entered her home.

  It didn’t surprise her. Someone was always yelling in her home – her mum, her dad, her brothers, her little sister, the twins. Only if she heard silence would something be wrong.

  The screaming was coming from the living room.

  She found a war zone. Her brothers Justin, Neal and Kirk were fighting over the Playstation 4. The console had only two controllers, which meant someone had to take turns. That someone was whoever was weakest or slowest. Neal was busy twisting Kirk’s arm to make him give up the controller. As a middle child, she had taken on the role of a peacekeeper, but she always felt outnumbered by the warring factions.

  “Stop that!” she said. “You’re hurting him, Neal. He’s younger than you.”

  Neal didn’t release her brother. If anything, he increased the arm twisting until Kirk’s face turned a violent purple. Kirk dropped the controller with tears in his eyes. “Ow! That hurts!”

  Neal grinned evilly. “Looks like my turn, loser. Say, Saff, where’s your boyfriend?”

  Neal never let her forget that her best friend was Ryan – a boy.

  “Shut up, Smell-boy.”

  Kirk chuckled, earning a nasty look from Neal.

  “Dad!” Neal called out. “Did you hear what Saffron called me? Dad?”

  Her dad was resting in his reclining chair with his eyes closed. He reeked of beer and cigarettes. Saffron knew that after working at the garage he had gone to the pub for his usual “quick half” that inevitably ended up as five or six pints. Half drunk, he had returned home only to eat his dinner and sleep for a few hours before venturing out again for another “quick half” with his mates. He repeated the routine six days a week, except Saturdays, when he stayed in the pub all day, returning after midnight too drunk to remember anything. Sometimes Saffron suspected he loved beer more than his family. Sometimes she was convinced of it. In reply to Neal’s words, he grunted something like “leave me alone.” It was hard to understand because it was slurred and sleepy. Then her dad started snoring.

  “I hate you,” Neal said to her before turning to face the TV, which was showing a group of zombies being blasted to pieces by Justin. Neil joined in the violence. Kirk deliberately blocked the screen - a big smile on his face. The zombies killed both Neil and Justin, ending the game. Kirk laughed. Suddenly the three of them were rolling on the floor wrestling, the Playstation 4 temporarily forgotten.

  “Stop fighting!” Saffron shouted.

  They ignored her. They seemed to enjoy it too much. Boys loved fighting, no matter what age they were. Saffron couldn’t understand why. It was stupid. The UN couldn’t stop my family fighting, she thought, stepping over and around them.

  “UnnngyaaaAAh!” one cried out in pain as she left the room.

  She hoped it was Neal.

  *

  Saffron found her frazzled mum in the kitchen with the twins. Her little sister was there, too, running around the table with her doll riding on top of her My Little Pony. Keeley was making loud and annoying clip-clopping and neighing noises. Saffron felt her head aching. She felt like grabbing the pony and throwing it through the nearest window, but she fondly remembered playing with her dolls when she was Keeley’s age. She could not interfere with the fun her little sister was having. She tried ignoring the braying in an effort to talk to her mum about Ryan. Saffron couldn’t talk to her dad about anything – not even when he was conscious and sober – but her mum was a good listener. She used to be a nurse, but had given up her job at the local NHS hospital to look after the twins.

  “Mum –” she began to say.

  “Not now, honey,” her mother moaned. “I’ve got to settle down these screaming brats.”

  “Oh, right.”

  Adam was spitting up something green and lumpy on her mum’s shoulder as she tried to rock him to sleep. Meanwhile, Alex writhed in his cot, wailing like a banshee, throwing a temper tantrum that could be heard in space. Her mum dealt with Adam, then came to feed Alex with a bottle, too tired to notice that Saffron was on the verge of crying. Saffron had felt unimportant to her mum since the births of her brothers, Adam and Alex, the three-month-old twins. The babies were blue-eyed and adorable, but they demanded attention constantly, taking turns at screaming, bawling and dirtying their nappies, draining her mum of her strength like mini-vampires. Her mum loved her - Saffron knew her mum would die for her - but she had no time to spare on Saffron’s problems, not when the twins kept them awake all day and night. Unfortunately, her dad was a useless lump who wouldn’t help with the kids, leaving the job of parenting entirely to her mum. It was a tough job being a mother. Her mother never got a day off. Her mum didn’t need any complications in her life that day. That was why Saffron didn’t say anything else. She simply gave her mum a kiss, then retreated from the kitchen.

  She approached the bottom of the stairs. From above, loud music blasted from the bedrooms of her older brothers, Shane and Gordon. Shane’s thrash metal was combining with Gordon’s gangster rap into a sound like a car crash. Her head started to throb. Going up the stairs, she vowed never to have kids when she was grown up. She couldn’t stand the chaos. All she wanted was some peace and solitude and some time to think. There was only one place in the house where that was possible: the loft.

  Because the house didn’t have enough bedrooms for her large family, the loft had been converted into an extra bedroom by her uncle, who was a DIY enthusiast. He had installed a trapdoor and pull-down loft ladder that allowed access via a cord she could pull to make the ladder come down from the ceiling. After he had completed the conversion, Saffron had volunteered to sleep up there because, when the trapdoor was closed, the loft was the quietest room in the house and the only place where she could be alone. At the top of the stairs, she reached up for the ladder, then climbed up, pushing the trapdoor open.

  Once in the loft, she pulled up the ladder so none of her brothers would disturb her. Her bedroom wasn’t very big (it was like living in a tent because of the sloping ceiling) but it was her space. It was possible to bang her head on the ceiling if she wasn’t careful, but a few bruises were worth it for the benefit of her own private space. Her brothers weren’t allowed up there on pain of death. The floorboards muffled their thundering music.

  No lights were on, but she could see by the sunlight coming through the window. Her uncle had made the window to let natural light in – a good idea - but he had not considered that the view out of it would be of the boring houses opposite. All she could see out of it was the rows and rows of slate-grey roofs under a darkening sky.

  She switched on the lights her uncle had put in above her bed and study desk. They lit the room well in a soft pink glow. Because it was getting dark outside, she closed her curtains. Sighing, she changed out of her school uniform into her comfortable clothes: jeans and a baggy T-shirt. She had two hours of homework for tomorrow ... but she didn’t feel like doing it. She slumped on the bed close to tears. What had happened to Ryan? And Rachel?

  Getting an idea, she moved across her room to her desk. A computer and monitor were on it. The computer had been her 11th birthday present from her mum. The machine was second-hand and had never had been state-of-the-art even when new, four or five years ago, but it had been her mum’s best, most useful present. The computer used next door’s broadband for free because her neighbours had used the word “password” as their password. When she sat down in front of the computer, she really, really hoped Ryan had left a message explaining why he’d been so strange. She had several new emails in her mailbox. Unfortunately, Ryan had not sent any of them. They were just from some of her girlfriends, plus the usual spam, which she deleted without opening.

  She typed a message to Ryan:

  Ryan, you weren’t acting like yourself in the car. Please tell me what’s going on! What really happened in the house?

  She noticed the s
pellchecker had marked “huose”. Stupid typo! She corrected it to “house” before sending off the message.

  She hoped he would reply soon.

  Next, she googled the name “Ravencroft.”

  Unfortunately, there were 412305 websites with the name in them. She looked through a dozen, discovering that the surname wasn’t rare. Loads of people had that name, but none appeared to be the one she was after. She added another search parameter, the word “Lucas.”

  There were only several thousand references for “Lucas” and “Ravencroft.”

  That was more like it.

  She clicked several wrong links before finding one that was interesting. She was surprised to read the site was about witchcraft. The name Lucas Ravencroft was mentioned in the footnotes of one scholarly article on Victorian occultism as a source of information. She clicked on his name, which sent her to another website containing biographies. Lucas Ravencroft had written a book entitled Reading Runes and Mystic Symbols.

  She found a short biography:

  Ravencroft, Lucas

  Author of Reading Runes and Mystic Symbols.

  He revolutionised the understanding of rune translations. Scientist, occultist and essayist. Member of the Hellfire Club.

  (b. April 2, 1805, London – d. November 17, 1905, London)

  Lucas Ravencroft had died over a hundred years ago at the age of a hundred. He couldn’t be the same man.

  Disappointed, she shut down the computer.

  Chapter Six

  The next morning rain pounded on the roof, waking Saffron from a sleep plagued by nightmares. Looking at her bedside dresser, Saffron saw it was a whole hour before her alarm was set to go off. She got up and opened her curtains onto a grey and wet day. Black clouds hung over the hills. It was cold in her bedroom.

  She crept down her ladder making sure she didn’t disturb anyone, especially the twins. (By some miracle, they were both sleeping at the same time.) She had the quiet kitchen to herself. She ate her cornflakes thinking about yesterday. Could it all have been part of a bad dream?