Blackbriar

by William Sleator

  Copyright © 1972 by William Sleator

  Reprinted in cooperation with Scovil Chichak Galen Literary Agency, Inc.

  First Marshall Cavendish Classics edition, 2009

  All rights reserved

  Marshall Cavendish is bringing classic titles from children's literature back into print for a new generation. We have selected titles that have withstood the test of time, and we welcome any suggestions for future titles in this program. To learn more, visit our Web site: www.marshallcavendish.us/kids.

  Marshall Cavendish Corporation

  99 White Plains Road

  Tarrytown, NY 10591

  www.marshallcavendish.us/kids

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Sleator, William.

  Blackbriar / by William Sleator. — 1st Marshall Cavendish Classics ed.

  p. cm.

  Summary: In the attempt to decipher a number of strange events after he moves into an old cottage, an orphaned teenaged boy discovers a group of English folk engaged in Devil worship.

  ISBN 978-0-7614-5585-1

  [1. Supernatural—Fiction. 2. Orphans—Fiction. 3. England—Fiction.] I. Title.

  PZ7.S6313Bl 2009

  [Fic]—dc22

  2008044747

  Printed in China

  1 3 5 6 4 2

  LONDON

  1

  Danny ran in the London twilight. He dodged among the crowds brandishing their large black umbrellas, darted across the path of an angry black taxi, and turned from the main thoroughfare into the darkness of the side street on which he lived. Past one façade he hurried, the same columned porch repeated endlessly down the curving row of connected houses. He was out of breath now, for he tired quickly, but he would not allow himself to stop running. He hated to think what would happen if Philippa reached home before he did.

  There were no lights coming from the windows of the second-floor apartment, and he nearly choked with relief. He knew that he could always see a light when Philippa was there. Fumbling with his wet books and his keys, he let himself into the first-floor hall. The stairway ahead of him, covered with a faded red carpet, was so dark that he could barely see to the first landing. “Dammit!” he said petulantly to himself, “why doesn’t somebody fix that light?”

  He hated the dark. And although it was a relief to know that Philippa would not be home, he was apprehensive as he made his way slowly up the narrow unlit stairs. There was no light switch just inside the apartment door, and when he entered in the dark there were always several moments of near panic while he groped for the cord that hung from the ceiling, blind and vulnerable to whatever he imagined might be waiting in the shadows.

  He struggled briefly with the key, then felt it catch and cautiously pushed open the heavy door. The only light in the apartment was pale and gray, coming in dimly through the long windows far at the end of the hallway.

  Danny moved toward the center of the room, reaching above his head. Where was that cord? His hand grabbed frantically at empty air.

  Suddenly he froze. What was that noise? It sounded like a creak, or a footstep. Too terrified to move, he stood with his hand outstretched.

  And then there was a thump behind him, and a weight on his shoulder.

  Danny shrieked, and in that instant his hand found the cord. The light went on, and a silver Siamese cat leapt delicately from his shoulder to the floor.

  “Islington!” Danny cried. “You monster!” and he kicked the cat halfway across the room. “She always takes you to work with her!” he shouted after the animal, who was disdainfully hurrying away. “Why didn’t she take you today?”

  Danny slammed his books down on a table and sank weakly into a chair. His knees were shaking so much that he could barely stand. For a moment he just sat and listened to the mad banging of his heart; but very soon he struggled out of the chair and hurried off to his room. Philippa would be home any minute now, and he wanted her to think he had been in the apartment all afternoon.

  By the time Philippa did arrive, half an hour later, Danny was in bed, half asleep under piles of blankets. His bed was the only warm place in the apartment, for he was forbidden to light the coal fire in the sitting room until Philippa came home. Perhaps, if the apartment had been warm, he would have spent the time out of bed, reading, or doing his school-work. Perhaps not.

  When the door slammed down the hall, the window beside his bed rattled, jolting him fully awake.

  “There, there, my darling, I know you’re starving, I know.” Philippa’s voice, purring to Islington, floated into Danny’s room amid the clatter of parcels dropping to the floor. “Hello!” she called. “Anybody home?”

  “I’m here,” Danny answered irritably. There was hardly anything he hated more than getting out of a warm bed into a cold room. It was not only the discomfort he minded. He found it very painful to give up the world of half sleep, where he could make almost anything happen merely by thinking about it, for the real world of cold and exertion, where nothing beautiful or exciting ever seemed to happen and everything required effort. But he knew that Philippa was expecting him in the kitchen, and he didn’t want her to know that he had been in bed. He unwrapped himself slowly from the blankets and stopped in the bathroom to splash some icy water on his face.

  Philippa was at the stove, boiling a fish for Islington. Her earrings shook, her graying hair hung in untidy wisps and strands about her face, and her cheeks sagged. “Oh, hello, darling,” she said as he wandered into the room. “I’m sorry I’m so late, but I had to spend hours waiting with that little Mumby boy, whose mother never showed up. Poor little thing, he’s too small to get home by himself. At the end I had to send him home in a cab. We had a good time together though. Aside from that, my day’s been bloody awful.”

  “What happened?” Danny slumped into a chair.

  “Oh, it’s that school!” said Philippa. “How I’ll ever make myself set foot in it again I can’t imagine!”

  Again? Danny thought, preparing himself for a long harangue. “What was it this time?” It was hardly a question.

  She looked past him for a moment toward the flat enameled dish under the sink. “Before I start, be a love and empty Islington’s toilet. It’s so full he can’t bear to go in it, and I can tell he’s in agony.”

  The cat lay comfortably under the table, licking his paw. Danny forced himself not to kick him again as he went by. He disliked any kind of physical exertion, particularly carrying things; but he quickly brought the large smelly tray down the two flights of steps and outside into the winter rain, where he dumped its contents into a dustbin. Islington seemed to smirk at him when he got back.

  The fish was cooling now, and Philippa had begun to prepare their meal. With her usual quick busyness she was doing something to last night’s roast beef. She looked up at him, smiling. “I hope you like what I’m making tonight, dear. It’s a new dish I’ve just thought up. We must try to spark up that nonexistent appetite of yours.”

  Danny mumbled something incoherent. Food did not interest him.

  “If it weren’t for you,” she went on, “I’d be having a boiled egg and a cold potato, you know.” She sighed. “And it does get a bit dreary making all this effort just for you, with never any response.” She waited, but he said nothing. Her lips tightened. “And by the way,” she said, her voice losing some of its warmth, “did you see anyone after school today?”

  Oh, no, Danny thought, and slowly began filling Islington’s tray with ashes. “No,” he said quietly.

  “Oh, come off it now, darling. You know you can’t lie to me. I saw you walking off today with that Tony Bramble. What?”

  He continued to fill the tray as slowly as he could, not looking at her. “Well,” he said
finally, standing up, “yes, I believe I did.”

  “There! I knew you’d tell me. Now, I’ve told you before I don’t like that boy, and I would rather you didn’t see him.”

  Danny sighed and slouched back into the chair. Who do you like? he felt like saying, but instead he said, faintly, “But I like him.”

  “Oh, Danny love, you’re so young, you don’t know who you like. One thing you’ve got to learn about life is that most people just aren’t worth knowing. Including Tony Bramble. Of course, if it doesn’t make any difference to you at all what I think, if it doesn’t bother you to make me suffer,”—now her voice was beginning to get that hard edge to it which was always a prelude to a scene,—“if you insist on being so stubborn that you cannot make the smallest concession to the person who has brought you up and taken care of you and fed you and loved you—”

  Danny was squirming. “Oh, all right,” he interrupted, “I won’t see him any more.”

  Philippa stepped over to him and stooped to kiss his forehead. Her eyes were wet. “My darling boy,” she said softly, after a pause, “I know you think I’m unfair. But I am right, you know.” She returned to the stove and went on briskly again. “Of course, this isn’t to say that one mustn’t try one’s best to get along with the people one is forced to deal with in the course of a day. That’s where I have my problems. I’ll never get along with Mr. Dinsdale, never, even if he is the school principal. But what can I do? I can’t risk losing that job, can I, dear?” She looked at him sideways. “My job,” she repeated when he didn’t answer. “You don’t think I should quit, do you?”

  “What?” Danny said. “Quit your job? Oh, no.”

  “Yes,” she said, “I couldn’t quit. Of course, if one had money,” she added dreamily. “If one had money, and servants too, the way one grew up . . .” She was always “one” in the past; but she never said any more than a few words about it, always finishing, as now, with “But that’s the past. No use thinking about that,” and going on. “No, I couldn’t quit my job. Not that I wouldn’t be overjoyed never to set foot in that bloody school again. I’d adore dashing off into some new, wild life, far away from this awful dirty noisy city. And Islington, poor darling, cooped up inside all day, never out chasing mice and things, he could do with a change. I’ve been in such an awful rut, never . . .”

  Danny returned to his thoughts. He never knew what to say when she went on like this, because he was positive she would never have the nerve to quit her job. But sometimes he wondered what would happen to him if she did leave London. At the least, it would mean that he would no longer have to live with her, something he often longed for. He knew that it was useless for him to suggest that perhaps he should move out, for he would be unable, as always, to stand up to the threats and cajolings and protestations she would make. But if she should leave London . . . She’ll never leave, he told himself.

  He remembered how it had been when he first came to live with her. He had never known his father, who had died shortly after he was born. His early childhood, with only his mother, had been warm and very sheltered. But when he was seven his mother had died suddenly, leaving him a small annuity, no relatives, and a busy, indifferent lawyer as his guardian. Philippa Sibley, the secretary at his school, had always befriended a certain special few of the younger children; and though Danny was not a particularly good student, his wild imagination had intrigued her. On that awful day, when word had come to the office that he no longer had a mother or a home to go to, it had been the most natural thing in the world for Philippa to take him back to her large kitchen, give him hot chocolate, and talk to him in a rich, soothing voice. Since there was nowhere else for him to go, there he had stayed. And when Mr. Bexford, the lawyer, finally found time to deal with Danny, it had been the simplest (and quickest) solution to allow him to remain with Philippa.

  She was certainly qualified to bring up a child. Not only had she worked at the school for many years, but she had had her own family. She was a widow now, and her only child, a daughter, had gone to South America at eighteen and never returned. Philippa assured Mr. Bexford that Danny would certainly not be a bother, that his annuity would be ample for room and board, and it had all been settled. The check that arrived punctually once a year was all they had heard from him since.

  As Danny had grown older he had become rather dissatisfied with the arrangement. And now, at fifteen, he saw that other children were beginning to grow away from their parents. Philippa had met the few token attempts he had made at semi-independence with hysterical scenes, threats, and accusations. He had given in quickly, vaguely resentful, but unwilling to continue to provoke her anger. It was so much easier and less painful simply to adjust. And there is a lot that’s good about her, he would tell himself. Any other place I lived would probably be worse.

  He had grown quite used to her, after all.

  “. . . trudging back to this dreary flat on this dreary street. Never admitting to myself how much I really hate this kind of life. But now that I’ve found out about this place, it might be possible to break away.” She sat down across from him. “Danny? Didn’t you hear me? I said, now that I’ve found out about this place, it might be possible for me to break away.”

  “What? What place? What do you mean?”

  “I never mentioned it before because I didn’t know if I’d ever have the nerve to do anything about it. But I suppose I might as well tell you anyway.” She paused, as if she were about to reveal something precious and very secret. She looked away from him for a moment, then pursed her lips.

  “There’s a little house, a cottage, far away from London, near the sea. It’s very old, no one knows how old, and very secluded, miles away from the nearest tiny village. Nobody knows why it is there, so far away from everything else, with only a rough road leading to it. And no one has lived there for as long as anyone can remember. It’s on a wooded, rocky hillside, and the farmer who owns the land is looking for someone to buy the place so he can get some profit out of it. But no one will live there, I suppose because it is so secluded.”

  “But how did you find out about it?”

  “The farmer advertises it in Country Life. The ad has been running there for years and years, and I never paid much attention to it. But then, a few weeks ago, Mr. Braintree from the school, who also gets Country Life, told me he’d seen the place, quite by accident, when he was on holiday. He was out walking and saw this strange little house, and realized it must be the same place. You should have heard him go on about it—”

  “I hear him go on plenty in biology every day.”

  “But oh, it sounds so beautiful! It’s on a high ridge, and you can see the ocean and miles all around. It has flint walls, yellow lichen on the roof, and a huge chimney. He looked in through the windows, and he could scarcely see for the dust, and of course the place was a mess, but he could make out a huge stone fireplace, and thick beams, and a narrow, winding stairway. He would have taken it himself, he said, but it wasn’t big enough for his family. “Oh,” she sighed, “if only, if only I had the nerve to do something about it!”

  “But why do you want to live so far away from everything?”

  “Why, I love the country! It’s so much nicer than this awful dirty noisy city. You’ve always lived in the city, you have no idea what the country is like.”

  “And you’d really like to live in such a secluded place all by yourself?” he said skeptically.

  “I’d have Islington.” She lowered her eyes. “And of course, you could come too, darling, if you liked.”

  “Me?” Then he noticed the expression on her face, and suddenly began to be afraid. Could she really mean it? Then I’d really never be able to live anywhere else, he groaned inwardly. And how cold and uncomfortable it would be! “But this is ridiculous,” he said. “You couldn’t afford to buy a house.”

  “Perhaps I could. I have been putting a little away over the years. And your annuity would help.”

  “But . . . but
I couldn’t go with you. I have to go to school. I don’t exactly love it, but it would be rather hard to get out of, wouldn’t it?”

  “We could work it, dear. You’ve passed your ‘O’ levels, after all. A lot of boys your age take a year’s holiday. You could certainly use it. And I could certainly educate you as well as any of those so-called teachers.”

  “But what about Mr. Bexford?” He was trying to keep his voice down. “What would he say? He wouldn’t let me leave school. And anyway, I like London,” he said helplessly. “I don’t want to go hiding away in the country!”

  “Islington’s hungry,” Philippa said. The cat was pawing at her lap, whining for his fish. The room had become very dark, and they could hear the clatter of dishes from the apartment across the way. “I suppose it’s time for us to eat, too,” she added, standing up.

  2

  The train pulled slowly away from Victoria Station. From inside the compartment Danny watched porters, baggage carts, and iron pillars slide by. In a moment they were outside, the vast, arching black cage diminishing behind them. Even more quickly they passed the Battersea power station, darkening the sky with its dense, billowing clouds of filth. Rows and rows of tenements, crouching up against the track, whizzed by, twisted and crowded together into one continuous, miserable pattern. And though the train had gained considerable speed, for a long time the tenements did not let go, but kept clutching at the train for mile after mile, trying to pull it back into the city.

  “I can’t understand why it takes so long to get away,” Danny said, “why places like this go on and on, almost as if people liked them.”

  “We got away,” Philippa said from across the aisle. “We got away, incredibly enough, and I, for one, am going to stay away. I already feel ten years younger.” She was surrounded by bulging canvas bags containing blankets, sheets, curtains, and tablecloths from the London flat. Cardboard boxes full of crockery, silverware, and glasses rattled precariously on the rack above her head. Battered suitcases, splitting at the seams, took up most of the other space in the compartment. Islington prowled on the floor, sniffing at the feet of the other occupants of the compartment, three uneasy people whose baggage lay outside in the corridor. They were an elderly couple and a prim young lady, who had already established a kind of rapport, and regarded Philippa and Danny with wary curiosity.