House of the Lost

by Sarah Rayne

  He had done so, realizing the reports of the bleak gaols and the political prisoners locked inside them had upset her. This was unusual; Petra normally allowed life to flow past her. Nancy said Petra was light-minded, but Theo knew it was just that his mother did not allow her emotions to appear on the surface. But that day she had done so and his memory of it was vivid.

  It was almost six p.m. and he suddenly realized he was ravenously hungry. He remembered disinterring some chicken from the freezer that morning, but when he tried to remember if he had had lunch he could not. It occurred to him he had been subsisting on soup and the occasional sandwich since he arrived at Fenn House a week ago, and this might be contributing to his current peculiar mental condition, if not actually causing it.

  The chicken had thawed and he put it into a casserole dish along with stock made from a cube and a couple of diced potatoes. There were mushrooms in the fridge which he had bought on the way here. They would be a week old but they looked all right so Theo added them to the dish, then put the whole thing in the oven. He went back to re-read the day’s work, polishing where it was necessary, until he reached the close of the chapter where Matthew had found the article referring to Ceauşescu.

  By this time he had decided that if the book ever got finished, anyone reading it would probably say, ‘Oh dear, poor Theo Kendal, this is the thing he wrote when he was a bit dotty. Sad, isn’t it? He was such a promising writer until then.’

  This was all so depressing that Theo poured himself a glass of wine which he drank while eating some of the chicken casserole which had been bubbling invitingly in the oven. He left the dish on the kitchen table to cool, pleased to think the rest of it would re-heat for tomorrow’s supper. Then he returned to his story, thankful that at least he finally knew where he was writing about. What he did not know was why he was plugging into this particular section of recent history.

  Romania, early 1970s

  As Matthew finished reading the article his father had written, sick horror swept over him. There were several words on the page he did not know and there were a few he thought he might not have read right because of the squiggly writing. But even allowing for a few mistakes, the images his father’s words conjured up were terrible ones: poor helpless prisoners shut away in dark gaols, in cold stone cells with barred windows, no one knowing they were there – only small traces of them remaining in people’s memories. The forgotten ones.

  And I know about them, he thought suddenly, and the untidy familiar study blurred. I know about those stone cells – I know there are women there as well as men, and I know some of them are quite young. They’re all miserable and hungry, but some of them are angry and the angry ones force the others to keep alive and keep trying to escape. How do I know that?

  He managed to push these pictures away and, locking the cupboard, he returned the key to its hiding place. It’s all right, he said to his mother’s photograph as he climbed down from the chair. I know what I’ve got to do. I know no one must see this paper because it tells about things that aren’t supposed to happen – things the cold-eyed men want to keep secret. But somehow my father’s found out the secrets and written about them, so they want to stop him.

  He took matches from his father’s drawer – his father occasionally smoked a pipe which Wilma said stank the house out, but which Matthew quite liked. He was not supposed to use matches, but he would only need one and he would return the box afterwards.

  He had the feeling that eyes watched him as he went along the garden path, the dreadful piece of paper folded in his pocket. The sheet of paper caught fire at once and Matthew scattered the crispy black shreds over the garden. He returned the matches to the study, careful to put them in the exact same place he had found them.

  He had saved his father, but there was still Mara. Matthew tried to think she would soon come home and everything would be all right, but the days went by and she did not. In the end, he knew he would have to tell his father everything. This made him feel instantly better, because his father would know what to do.

  His father listened carefully, not saying anything until Matthew had finished, but seeming to listen not just with his ears but with his eyes and his mind as well. He always did this; it was one of the really good things about him.

  Matthew explained how the men had wanted to know where his father went two or three times a year, and how they had wanted papers or diaries or writings that might tell them his father was a traitor. He stumbled a bit over this word because it was a shameful thing to be saying, but his father made an impatient gesture as if to say, Never mind about that, and Matthew went on. He had thought he would say how he had found the writing his father had done about the prison houses and the people whose names were lost, but he could not. He told him everything else though, and when he came to the end he felt weak and a bit trembly but better, like being sick which was horrid while it was happening but which made you feel better afterwards.

  ‘And so,’ he said, ‘it’s my fault she’s been taken away, and we must find her and bring her home.’ He waited confidently for his father to say they would do so at once, even that he knew people who would help. He’ll make everything all right, thought Matthew confidently.

  But his father did not make everything all right. His face took on the white strained look he always had when the men came to the house and when he came back from his mystery absences.

  ‘Matthew, if I could help Mara, I would. But I can’t. And you must promise me very solemnly that you won’t try to find out what’s happened to her. Not ever.’

  ‘I can’t promise that,’ said Matthew. ‘We must rescue her. You can do it, can’t you? You can do anything.’

  ‘I can’t do this. If I so much as try, something far worse will happen.’

  ‘What? What will happen? Nothing could be worse than this,’ cried Matthew desperately. ‘Nothing…’

  ‘Oh Matthew, yes it could,’ said his father, his eyes like dark pits. ‘It really could.’

  For the first time ever, Matthew saw that his father was frightened.

  Mara was trying not to show how very frightened she was.

  She had always known deep down that one day the men would come and she thought her grandmother had known it as well, but she always imagined it happening in the middle of the night. The midnight knock, people called it, telling how you were jerked out of sleep, too befuddled to put up any kind of resistance or think how to outwit the men.

  But when they finally came to Three Lanes Cottage it was the middle of the evening. Mara and her brother had been playing a game by the fire. She liked this hour before bedtime with him; she liked watching his small absorbed face and seeing how his eyes lit up when he scored a point in the game.

  The knock on the door made Mara jump, spilling the counters on the board. She looked across at her grandmother and saw her face had a dreadful pinched look. Then she saw the dimmed headlights of the jeep shining through the curtains and heard the thick growl of its engine. Her heart began to beat fast as if she had been running very hard and she remembered they had planned she would snatch up her brother and run to hide him in the shed outside. But there was only the one door leading outside and the men were already there, and there was no time to hide.

  Or was there? Her grandmother was pointing to the latched door that led to the stairs and Mara nodded. She grabbed her brother’s hand – he did not entirely understand what was happening but he sensed the fear – and half carried, half pulled him up the narrow stairs to the two tiny bedrooms. In the one Mara shared with her grandmother was a flap opening into the loft, and by standing on the bed on the tips of her toes, she could just reach it. She pushed it back, and lifted her brother up, scrambling after him, then closing the flap, laying a finger on her lips to indicate they must be quiet.

  They crouched in the dark, cramped space under the roof and waited. The men were inside the cottage. Their voices came up through the floor, rapping out orders, telling Mara’s grandmothe
r to stay where she was and not interfere. Doors were opened and closed loudly. Mara’s heart was pounding so furiously she was afraid they might hear it all the way downstairs.

  She put her arms round her brother to make him feel safe. He was shivering with fear and smelt of soap and clean hair. He was the most precious thing in her whole life. If she lost him tonight, these clean-hair, clean-skin scents would be part of the memories she would have of him. She was very frightened indeed, but there was a good chance the men would not see the little hatch in the bedroom ceiling.

  But they did see it because they knew what to look for; they knew all about hiding places – cupboards and lofts into which people crammed themselves to avoid being taken away. They pushed the hatch open, crashing it back so that dust clouds rose up and the old timbers groaned. A man’s head came up into the loft and Mara pressed back into the dark corner, hoping he would not see them. But even in the dim light she saw him smile. He reached out, and his hands closed round her wrists, and although she struggled, he held her firmly. As he pulled her down through the open flap she risked a quick look back and saw her brother still crammed in the corner, thrusting knuckled fists into his eyes which was what he always did to stop himself crying. Mara wanted to call out not to be afraid and to say she would be back very soon, but it was just possible the man had not seen the small huddled figure so she did not.

  As they carried her out to the waiting jeep, she managed to look across at her grandmother who was standing by the fireplace, one hand clutching the brick mantel, the other pressed over her heart. Would she be all right? There was no time even to call out that she would come back very soon, because they were already through the door and outside. A thin cold rain was falling. In the jeep’s headlights it looked like little shards of broken glass pelting down from the skies; there was a hot oily smell from the growling engine. Mara struggled again, this time managing to kick the man who was carrying her. He swore and said she was a vixen and they knew how to deal with creatures like that inside the Black House.

  It was not until he said this that Mara stopped telling herself she would be returning to the cottage soon, and knew there was no point in struggling any longer.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Romania, early 1970s

  The lane winding up to the Black House was narrow and lonely. A spiteful little wind blew through the trees, like somebody sobbing somewhere in the darkness. The trees partly screened the house, but the lane twisted and turned sharply so that little bits of it kept coming into view and then vanishing. Each time this happened the house was a bit nearer, until the jeep went round the last curve of the track and they came out into a clearing and there it was, rearing up in front of them.

  It was built out of harsh black stone, and all the walls seemed to be leaning in the wrong direction so it looked twisted. It was surrounded by blackness – a thick oozing darkness like black goblin juice bleeding into the sky, shutting out all the light for ever. Old trees grew right up to it, and some of the upper branches leaned down to the windows like bony fingers trying to get inside. There were bars at some of the windows, and shutters closed over others as if it might be empty, but when the men pulled Mara from the jeep, she saw a thin curl of smoke coming from one of the chimneys.

  At the centre of the building was a thick iron-studded door, and when one man pulled on a bell rope it made a dry rusty scraping inside the house like bones rattling together. There was the sound of footsteps, somebody fumbled with a bolt or a lock, and a woman wearing a grey dress opened the door. Her face was pale as if she did not go into the fresh air very often, and she was thin and sharp-featured. She took Mara into the bad-smelling dimness of the house, closing the door with a heavy clanging sound and turning the key in the lock. Mara gave a sobbing gasp and tried to pull her hand free, but the woman held her too tightly. In a sharp angry voice that made Mara think of tiny hard pebbles, she said, ‘None of that, now.’

  ‘Please – why am I here?’ said Mara, desperately. She saw the woman look down at her in surprise as if she was not used to being questioned, and this brought some of the courage back. ‘I won’t try to run away, but tell me why I’ve been brought here.’ Greatly daring, she said, ‘Who are you?’

  At first she thought the woman was not going to answer, but then she said, ‘My name is Zoia – no need for any other name. I look after everything inside the Black House. As to why you’re here – see now, you’re eight, aren’t you?’

  ‘Nearly nine.’ Mara thought this sounded a lot older than eight.

  ‘Then that’s not too young for you to understand what goes on in the world. You’re what they call a pawn.’

  Pawns were something in a game that clever people played for hours and hours at a time, taking it very seriously. Mara did not really understand what the woman meant, but she was not going to let her know that, so she said, ‘Why am I a pawn?’

  ‘There are important people who need to know certain things,’ said Zoia. ‘Things your very particular friend knows.’ She grinned nastily as she said this, as if the word friend meant something different to her.

  ‘Friend?’ But Mara had already guessed who Zoia meant.

  ‘Your friend Matthew. Those important people want to find out the secrets from him. The Party doesn’t allow secrets, so they tried bargaining with him – you know what a bargain is, do you?’

  ‘Of course I do.’

  ‘The bargain was that if Matthew told them all the secrets, you would be allowed to go back to your home. Do you understand that?’

  ‘Yes. Matthew will tell them whatever they want,’ said Mara, confidently. ‘As soon as he knows it’s to rescue me, he’ll tell them. Only I’m not sure if he knows any secrets,’ she said, suddenly doubtful.

  ‘It’s not Matthew who has the secrets, you silly little girl, it’s his father,’ said Zoia. ‘It’s Andrei. He’s the one they need to know about.’

  ‘Why?’ But even as Mara spoke she was remembering the whispers about Matthew’s father, and she remembered all the things her grandmother had said.

  ‘Andrei Valk is what we call “an enemy of the people”,’ said Zoia. ‘That’s a very wicked thing to be. You’re not too young to start learning that, either.’ She tightened her grip on Mara’s hand and took her along a corridor and up a long flight of stairs. ‘You’re to be kept here,’ she said. ‘If your friend talks, you’ll go home. If not, you’ll stay.’

  They went up another flight of stairs. The walls were dingy, and there were wall lamps every few metres. Mara thought they were lamps that burned oil: her grandmother told how there had been oil lamps in the house where she had lived as a girl, but they were a terrible nuisance and, if you did not clean them properly, they began to smell. The oil lamps in the Black House smelled as if they had not been cleaned for a hundred years: it was a fatty, greasy smell like rancid butter. A few of them were lit and burning with a thick smeary yellow light, and several dripped with hot bad-smelling oil which ran down the walls. In the narrow passage they looked like yellow lidless eyes peering down to watch everything that happened, with tears oozing out.

  ‘In here,’ said Zoia and, opening a door at the end of the corridor, she thrust Mara inside.

  Beyond the door was a big room – bigger than any room Mara had ever seen. There was grimy plasterwork near the ceiling with cobwebs hanging from the corners, and a smeary bluish light came in from two narrow windows set high up near the ceiling. Six or seven iron beds stood along the wall but no one was sleeping in any of them – Mara could not decide if this was a good thing or not. At the far end was a huge elaborate fireplace with a squat black stove where the fire would normally be, and a wide grille at the front like a grinning mouth, big enough for a person to be fed into.

  ‘Into bed.’

  ‘But it isn’t my bedtime.’ Mara had no idea where she had found the courage to say this, but the small show of defiance made her feel brave for a moment.

  ‘Times don’t matter in here,’ said Zoia. ‘Y
ou’ll be less trouble if you’re in bed. You’ll be fed when it’s tomorrow morning. The lavatory’s along the passage, so no dirty wet bed, mind. There’s a punishment for wet beds in this place. There’re punishments in this place for a lot of things.’ She did not say this as if she enjoyed telling about punishments or as if she was threatening Mara. She simply said it, then went out closing the door behind her.

  Until now Mara had managed not to cry, but alone in this terrible room tears sprang uncontrollably to her eyes and she huddled against the pillow, sobbing miserably. But then she remembered about being brave and getting back to her brother, so she wiped her eyes on her sleeve, took off her shoes, and got under the covers. The bed was uncomfortable with scratchy stale-smelling sheets, but the sooner she went to sleep, the sooner morning would come and they would let her go home. Matthew had probably told them the secrets already; Mara thought this ought to make her feel better.

  But she did not feel better at all. She felt frightened and lost. The wind breathed gustily in the room’s massive stone chimney, and there were little rustlings and tappings as if something was trying to get in. The faraway ceiling had fungus growing on it, like the mushrooms Mara and her brother sometimes gathered in the autumn and toasted on the fire for supper, and her bed was under a really big bit of mushroomy growth. If she went to sleep it might break off and fall on her face and smother her.

  I can’t bear this, she thought suddenly. I can’t lie here like this all night – I won’t lie here like this. With the thought, anger came surging up, and she looked about her, trying to see if there was any way of getting out without anyone knowing. The door of this room was not locked; could she tiptoe through the darkness and find a door leading outside? Sister Teresa at school said if you were frightened you should take several deep breaths and ask God to help you, so Mara took several deep breaths and asked God to help her get out of the Black House. If she could get back to Three Lanes Cottage she would be safe. Even if the men came looking for her again, her grandmother would help her hide and this time it would be a proper hiding place where she would not be found. Or she would run away for miles and miles and no one would know where she had gone.