The Hunting Ground Page 8

  ‘But what about Eve?’ Ben protested, throwing up his arms. ‘We’ll be leaving her alone here …’

  Elliott watched him closely. So did Dad.

  ‘Eve won’t be forgotten about,’ Dad said after a long pause. ‘On the way back I’ll hand the diary to the police.’

  Ben gave a grunt of frustration, kicking the wall.

  ‘It’s not fair on Eve!’ he yelled. ‘It’s not! She’s been in the house all this time on her own. We’re the first people here in ages, and now … now we’re leaving her all alone again.’ He was breathing hard. ‘Who knows how long it’ll be before anybody else comes? She’ll be stuck with nothing to do. I know she’s only a ghost but we can’t just leave her here on her own, Dad. We can’t!’

  Elliott said quietly, ‘It’s interesting that you’re not scared of Eve any more, Ben. A few hours ago you were terrified of her. What’s changed?’

  Ben started to reply, then fell silent, as if anything he said would incriminate him.

  After giving Ben another measured look, Dad said, ‘I’ll contact Eve’s surviving family. If she’s here somewhere they can decide what to do. But we’re definitely not staying. I want both of you packed and ready to leave by twelve o’clock tomorrow, no later.’

  Ben protested a little more, but Dad refused to budge, and afterwards he drew Elliott aside. ‘I’m going to sleep in the room next to yours tonight,’ he told him. ‘What shall we do with Ben?’

  ‘Make him stay in my room, where I can keep an eye on him.’

  ‘Agreed,’ Dad said.

  Ben tried to squirm out of staying with Elliott that night. He kept saying that he was OK, felt fine, wasn’t scared, didn’t understand what was wrong with everyone. The more Elliott heard, the more convinced he became that Ben was being influenced in some way by the house.

  They had a bite to eat with Dad around eight p.m. After that, Ben, still arguing, reluctantly brought a mattress and blankets into Elliott’s room from his own bedroom.

  Dad set up in the room next door. Earlier, he’d paid special attention to securing the East Wing. Its entrance had been resealed in a way no one could dismantle without specialist tools, whatever patience they might have for the task.

  Just after eleven o’clock, with Ben’s agreement, Elliott switched off all the lights in the bedroom. Inevitably, as soon as he dropped his head back on his pillow, Elliott started listening for noises in the corridor outside. It was impossible not to.

  Ben lay in the darkness, saying not one word.

  What happened when you went inside the East Wing earlier? Elliott wondered. Ben was somehow more comfortable in the house since then. How could anyone be more comfortable after being inside that place?

  ‘I keep humming Eve’s rhymes,’ Elliott muttered, looking for a reaction – something, anything – from Ben. ‘Can you believe that? I can’t get them out of my head.’

  ‘They’re pretty crazy rhymes.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  More silence. Ben didn’t move under his sheets. He was so still that at one point Elliott, pretending to adjust his own pillows, leaned across to make sure he was still there.

  Ben’s round face gazed blankly back at him.

  Details from the diary kept jumping into Elliott’s mind. Was it really just a work of fiction? No, he didn’t believe that. But then what was Janey hiding? And what had happened to Theo? The more he read, the more Elliott had come to care about the boy in the diary. My friend, he thought, realising that he meant it. The possibility that Cullayn had somehow got his hands on him was unbearable.

  ‘What about the rhymes?’ he asked Ben. ‘What do you think they mean?’

  ‘I haven’t got an opinion. Just go to sleep, Elliott.’

  ‘You think each name refers to a person who died? Someone Cullayn killed?’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘Do you believe the diary’s telling the truth?’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘Maybe? Is that all you’ve got to say about anything? When you’re not weeping over Eve, that is. When you’re not begging and crying to get Dad to stay.’

  Normally that would have got an immediate and incendiary reaction from Ben. Elliott had deliberately jibed him as a test.

  Ben just gave a low chuckle. ‘Yes, it is all I’ve got to say. I’m tired. Let’s just go to sleep. Nothing’s going to happen.’

  Elliott turned over in the dark. ‘You’re confident about that, are you? You can sleep quite happily?’

  ‘Sure,’ Ben replied in a reasonable manner that to Elliott sounded totally false. ‘Look, we’re not alone, are we? Dad’s right next door. And if Eve’s around, I don’t think we should be scared of her. She’s just a little girl who wants to play, that’s all. We should be feeling sorry for her, not scared. We’ll be fine. Don’t worry. Eve probably won’t visit us tonight. She’ll just stay in the East Wing. Let’s get some rest.’

  Elliott edged across to the left side of his bed and gazed at his brother. A river of moonlight flowed across Ben’s face from the window. His motionless hands were outside the covers. He looked like he was waiting very patiently for something. Elliott caught him whispering a couple of words. Then, seeing that he was being watched, Ben fell hushed again.

  Elliott remained awake.

  So did Ben. An hour or so later, he said irritably, ‘It’s OK, Elliott. Go to sleep, will you? You’re making me nervous. Eve’s harmless – just a sad lonely little girl who’s been on her own too long.’

  ‘So you’re not worried about her coming in to say hi tonight?’

  ‘No. I think we’re going to be OK. There’s two of us.’ Ben smiled in the dark. ‘Unless you run away, like you said you would if the ghost came. Except you didn’t, did you? You stuck close to me when Eve turned up. You looked after me. Thanks, Elliott. I knew … I knew you would.’

  This compliment was so unlike any conversation Elliott had ever had with Ben before that he didn’t bother replying. Instead, he lay tensed and rigid in the dark.

  Ben wiped a curl of hair out of his eyes. ‘I’m going to sleep now.’

  ‘OK, you do that.’

  ‘Are you all right, Elliott?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Are you going to go to sleep?’

  ‘When I’m ready.’

  ‘When will that be?’

  ‘Soon.’

  ‘Good,’ Ben said, and with that he turned onto his side as if everything was settled.

  Elliott leaned back against his pillow, gazed straight up at the ceiling and blew out a long breath.

  A few minutes later Ben said from the darkness, ‘Should we leave the door open? You know, in case she wants to come in?’

  ‘No,’ Elliott answered. ‘We might be asleep. We don’t want it – her – coming in without us knowing about it, do we?’

  14

  WITH HIS EYES WIDE OPEN

  But Eve came anyway.

  With a ghost’s patience, she waited on the second floor for everyone to fall asleep. While she waited she spent the time playing with Katerina: dismantling her limbs and screwing them back together again, combing her hair with an old brush and messing it up again. Katerina was always getting her hair in such a tizzy muddle.

  Elliott stayed awake for much longer than Cullayn planned, but it didn’t matter. He fell asleep in the end.

  Once she knew he was fully asleep Eve slipped upstairs. She stole past Dad’s room, opened Elliott’s door and tiptoed through. She felt much more self-assured than before. The hollows of her eyes were like delicate smudges of charcoal. By the light of the moon her pale face was so white it was almost green.

  Ben was asleep, too. Sheer fatigue. He’d tried to stay awake, but he’d been doing a lot of wandering recently and he was tired. Eve watched him avidly. Her small teeth shone. Leaning forward, she dared him to wake. She wanted him to leave the room with his eyes wide open.

  Janey Amanda Roberts eased into the room moments later. Her rendezvous with Eve was prearranged. Secret
paths led into this place, and Janey knew everything about Glebe House, and had trained herself to avoid unnecessary noise as she padded in and out of spaces.

  The ghost of Eve stared at her and Janey stared back. Eve did not blink, but Janey had no choice. Janey knew her place. Not wanting to interfere with what Eve was doing, she bowed her head deferentially, retreating into the room’s shadows.

  Eve prepared her little-girl pout, puffed out her dead lungs and on a whim blew hard on Ben’s cheeks.

  He woke with a start, and only the untouch of her hand over his mouth prevented him from crying out.

  Eve bent down to his warm earlobe. ‘Come with me,’ she whispered.

  Ben glanced towards the sleeping Elliott.

  ‘No, not him,’ Eve said. ‘I want to show you something. He won’t let us go alone.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘No. Come on. This is just for us. A special thing. Come on.’

  When he hesitated, Eve smiled. It was a smile that said everything would be fine, and because it imitated Cullayn’s smile, which had been drawing him to the East Wing for days in a way he could not understand, Ben followed her. The hem of Eve’s red dress swirled like a bridesmaid’s train against the musty carpet as she ran lightly from the room. Her feet sprayed dust. She was swift, and she trailed an arm behind her, like a mother guiding a child, and Ben put his larger hand around her small one and followed her out.

  She led him serenely down the sweeping oak staircase.

  The entrance to the East Wing was barricaded. Dad had screwed six sturdy planks of cherry rosewood in a cross-hatch across the entrance. Neither Ben nor any little girl, dead or otherwise, could have stripped them off without waking someone.

  Janey, demurely trailing in Ben’s footsteps, came forward. She’d already surveyed the house earlier tonight, especially this part. Her own weak wrists were fumbling ducks, but a tool merchant had hired her an electrically-driven bracketed screwdriver which could work efficiently in near silence.

  She methodically removed the planks. Ben ignored her presence. He was focused utterly on Eve.

  Eve gave Janey a measured glance when she was done. The glance was nothing like a child’s. ‘If we wait for long enough something wonderful might happen,’ she said mockingly in her sing-song voice, repeating Janey’s greatest hope for the ghost children.

  Janey did not react, but Ben did. Seeing the disharmony of the exchange disturbed the tranquillity of his mood. For the first time he felt slightly nervous. Eve realised that if she didn’t recover rapidly, Janey would have to take over, and Daddy would know she’d messed up. She didn’t want that, didn’t want him not trusting her, so she flung out both hands to Ben like a dancer offering the stage to a partner. She giggled. ‘Come on,’ she said, impatient, excited. ‘Into the lovely quiet and dark.’

  Ben let Eve’s hands guide him inside. He wasn’t quite certain why he was here – was a little confused about why he wasn’t asking questions – but Janey helped him, prodding his chin up to the portraits. Seeing them always made things clearer.

  Eve kept up a brisk pace. She didn’t give Ben much time to think. He accepted that, not even bothering to look far ahead because there was no light to see by. Curiously, the darkness did not seem anywhere near as bad or scary to him as it had before. Stumbling occasionally, he trotted along – trying to keep up with Eve – while Janey, unnoticed, followed behind.

  At the next intersection Eve took a tight right turn, slapping the walls as she went. As Ben hurried after her dizzy feelings overcame him. He stopped, looking around. Eve was unexpectedly gone. Her hand, the one which had so recently been holding his, was no longer there.

  Ben took a small step forward, suddenly frightened. Ahead of him a scrap of moonlight illuminated the floor.

  ‘Hey!’ he called, hearing Eve’s voice in the distance. ‘Where are you?’

  She was somewhere ahead of him, singing rhymes. A few rhymes he already knew. The rest related to dead people he had not heard about before.

  ‘ … T for Tobias, a swish of the scythe. And also for Tanya, who writhed and writhed. U is for Ursula, dead and drawn, V for Victoria, turfed by dawn …’

  She’s helping me to catch her up, Ben thought, not really listening. It felt like a game.

  He ran toward the sounds. Eve stayed just ahead of him, her words blurred by distance. As Ben turned left into a new corridor, he heard ‘… J is for John, once quiet and tall. What happened to John again?’ Eve’s faraway voice gave a happy squeal. ‘Oh yes, he fell from a wall!’ Shrieking with laughter she ran on, always staying at the edge of Ben’s vision.

  Breathlessly he followed, but she was going too fast. He called desperately for her to slow down.

  ‘No, no, come on, hurry!’ she demanded, not unkindly, and only when Ben got too tired to keep up did she return to him. Staring at him a moment, she thrust a sketch into his hand. ‘Do you like it?’ she asked, obviously wanting him to.

  Ben could barely see the sketch in the darkness, but he said yes anyway, hoping she’d stay with him.

  She did a moment, kissing his hand. Then she was off again, skipping up the corridor. Ben lost sight of her immediately. ‘Don’t forget to show Elliott the picture,’ she murmured, even the sound of her almost gone now.

  One final verse came back to Ben, fluttering on her high voice.

  Where’s the Ogre?

  Where’s he been?

  Where’s he hiding, all unseen?

  Eve’s words died away.

  ‘Eve?’ Ben whispered.

  But she was no longer with him. Nor was Janey. Janey was never invited this deep inside the East Wing.

  Ahead, the corridor descended. At the bottom of that descent was a small set of steps. At the bottom of those steps was a dark passageway.

  Folding up and tucking Eve’s picture inside his pyjama top pocket, Ben walked cautiously down the steps into the passageway and looked around.

  One wall showed the usual portraits of Cullayn. The owner smiled in three different ways from them.

  The other wall was blank, moonlit.

  A strangely terrified feeling suddenly swarmed inside Ben. Time to get out, part of him thought, the true part, knowing it was important.

  Instead he lay down. It was hard not to. It felt good. It felt right.

  The carpet in the corridor was crusty with age but not so dust-ridden that Ben couldn’t put his cheek against it here, and here, and rest his lips just there, off the surface.

  This place felt special. To be so deep inside did not feel wrong. Was that because Eve had made her home here? Was her home now his home? That idea should have filled Ben with unimaginable fear, but instead he found himself stretching out his arms and legs. He felt unaccountably drowsy. Why not have a nap? Or a longer sleep? He directed his gaze at the roof. Little swirls of plaster caught the moonlight.

  I could live here, he thought. The idea came unbidden into his mind, and it did not feel odd.

  It was a statement of victory, but not Ben’s.

  Behind him, the blank wall slid open.

  15

  UNFED FOR SO LONG

  Later that night the moon rose higher in the night sky, seen by some, not by others.

  Janey stood near the East Wing, resting against a wall. She was out of breath. It had been difficult carrying the sleeping Ben back to Elliott’s room, and then having to drag herself all the way downstairs again to refit the planks over the East Wing entrance. The metal screws had taken a lot of work. And, of course, when it was Elliott’s turn to go inside, she would have to open it again.

  Eve had surprised her and Cullayn by asking for permission to deal with Elliott herself. She wanted to do it alone. ‘A game, Daddy, a game. I won’t mess up. I won’t! It’ll be fun!’ She’d hopped and buzzed around Cullayn like a dragonfly until he agreed.

  Cullayn had pretended to object, but Janey had seen how secretly pleased he was that Eve was taking the lead. She was his undisclosed weapon, his littl
e huntress in the making. Cullayn had high plans for Eve. He could have swallowed her soul when she died, taken all that energy in one great satisfying gulp, but he’d kept her close instead. Made her an ally in his hunting plans. Tutored her.

  No fun if it’s too easy when it comes to Elliott, he’d chided her. Surprise me.

  Tucking the pneumatic screwdriver back into its plastic container now, Janey left the Glebe House estate. On her way back to the village she glanced up. A night hawk was in a sycamore tree, preening itself after a kill. With a flick of its tail it headed towards the hunting ground. Janey turned to follow it, her eyes coming to rest on the slope and the trees. Their leafy tops swayed in a mild breeze, brightened by moon-gleam and stars.

  Only Elliott left now, she thought. One more child to fish out.

  Eve didn’t need her help any more. The little girl was determined to do it all herself. She had already instructed Ben on what to do tomorrow. He’d remember his part in the morning. Eve was the fisherman now, Ben her shiny lure. Janey wondered what plan the two of them would hatch. It wouldn’t be straightforward getting Elliott back inside the East Wing. But then again, if Cullayn had taught the imaginative Eve one thing, it was how to turn everything into a game.

  16

  THE DOLL’S HOUSE

  Elliott couldn’t remember falling asleep, and woke next morning from a night of troubled dreams. By contrast, Ben seemed refreshed. Up bright and early to the bathroom he was, washing his face and brushing his teeth until they gleamed. His tiredness was gone. Even his bruise looked less angry.

  ‘I’m starving,’ he announced at breakfast, tucking in.

  While he ate he chatted perkily about Eve the ghost. He didn’t seem to mind sharing a house with her after all. Elliott and Dad had little appetite, but Ben savoured his food. He looked so genuinely unconcerned to be in the house that Dad nearly revised his decision to leave today. Had his judgment been overhasty? No, he decided. We’re leaving anyway. He reminded them of the departure time: twelve noon. By then he’d have the razor-wire back over the main gates and the external alarms set. Heading off into the grounds, he left clear instructions with Elliott to remain with Ben at all times and to stay away from the East Wing.