Skull in the Wood (22 page)

I put my hands to the frame and started lifting myself up.

‘No!' Tilda whispered urgently. ‘You'll get yourself killed!'

‘I have to,' I said. ‘Don't worry. I'll be really careful. It'll mean you'll have a chance. And Kitty, too. And it's all my fault anyway.'

All at once I was being dragged back to the floor.

‘Don't!' Tilda yelled. Her words rushed out helterskelter. ‘Matt, it's not your fault.' She took a breath. ‘And it's not Aunty Caroline's, either. I . . . I know Mum wasn't very fair to her. I heard her once on the phone to your mum, and Dad tried to tell her she
wasn't being very reasonable about the fields, but she wouldn't listen. And then after Mum died Aunty Caroline wrote me a letter trying to explain everything. But . . . I threw it away.'

I had clenched my fists. With an effort I unclenched them again. Slowly I took Tilda's hand, and at once she seemed to gather her strength. She looked fierce and proud and unbeaten.

‘I love this place,' she said. ‘But you're my cousin. My family. Whatever happens with the farm, we'll deal with it. It doesn't matter. We've got to stop all this. I won't let everything be poisoned any more.'

She stopped abruptly.

‘Matt,' she said in a trembling voice. ‘I can smell burning.'

I peered out of the window. A wisp of smoke rose upwards, filling my nostrils and making my eyes water. The living room must be on fire. I didn't know how it had happened – maybe one of the hounds had sparks in its fur when it broke in. Maybe the gabble ratchet just destroyed everything in its path. I'd no idea. But we couldn't stay here. We'd be burned alive.

‘Quick! Help me move the chest of drawers again,' I said. ‘We've got to get out.'

Behind us, something growled – a low, hostile
growl that made my skin go cold. We both swung round.

Jez was standing in front of the chest. There were flecks of foam at the side of her mouth and her eyes were rolling. For a moment I couldn't work out what was going on. Then Tilda seemed to take it in. She made a lunge towards Jez, but I grabbed her and pulled her back and held her there.

Everything was in slow motion. I could hear my heart beating, and Tilda's rapid shallow breathing. Jez's body was twisting and writhing, her eyes fixed on Tilda's in what looked like longing.

As we watched, she seemed to grow, bigger and bigger, her delicate features blunting into something coarse and vicious. Her eyes turned from caramel to a blank cold stare. Then she was on her feet again, huge and tall and menacing. She snarled and bared her teeth at me.

We were lost.

‘The window!' Tilda yelled.

I pulled her arm. ‘You go,' I said. ‘I'll try and keep her off.'

‘No! She won't hurt me. She loves me. Just go!'

There was no time to argue. I did what she said, not letting my eyes off Jez as I stepped into the frame. In
the light of the flames I could see two huge hounds down on the path below. They craned their necks up and howled. I could hear more on the stairs, barking and baying. In a minute they would be here.

I cast about desperately for a hold. There was ivy everywhere, but I didn't dare trust it. At last I grabbed onto a drainpipe and levered myself out. Smoke filled my eyes and lungs, and I coughed and heaved. But it had to be possible. There was a narrow ridge all round the house that looked as if it might be strong enough to carry our weight. If we were very, very careful, we could make it to the front – away from the hounds.

Jez let out a low snarl. I turned back and peered into the room. She was inching towards Tilda. Nearer and nearer. Drool dripped from her mouth.

‘Sit, Jez,' Tilda was saying. Her voice was trembling. ‘Good girl. Sit. Jezebel, sit!'

‘Get a move on, Tilda,' I said. ‘Now!'

Tilda pulled herself out beside me. Her face was a mess of tears and she was spluttering in the smoke. I stared back inside, unable to tear my eyes away. Jez growled again, a deep rasp that made her whole body shake. We edged back along the ridge, clinging to the ivy, hoping to goodness it would hold.

Suddenly Jez tensed all her muscles. She snarled
again. And then she sprang towards us through the open window. I saw her claws scrabble desperately on the slate tiles, failing to find a purchase.

And then she hurtled through the air and fell to the ground.

The last thing I heard was Tilda's scream.

32

Tilda

I
don't know if I understand everything now, or if I ever will. Matt says that when we got down off the roof I passed out. I do remember the hounds going quiet though, just after Jez fell. According to Matt, Gabe and the kennel man came and rounded them up, only by then there wasn't anything strange about them at all. And I remember Alba stroking my forehead down in our kitchen after Gabe had put out the fire. But she's saying nothing.

In front of me the sea was grey and the sky was grey and so was everything between. There's no black and white. Everything merges, everything fades into everything else. In art class at school they teach us not
to draw the edges. To look at how the light slips over solid forms and liquefies them. Who knows what's solid anyway?

Matt and I walked in silence along the beach. A tangled trail of debris marked the high-water line. It was bladderwrack and torn plastic beakers and the occasional strange object tossed up by the sea. A single trainer. A tiny bleached crab, belly up, its limbs hugging salt air. When I stood on a clump of seaweed, flies rose in a black cloud.

Far off down the bay I could see a curlew standing alert, staring out towards the horizon. In my dreams I could still trace the line of its skull and weigh it in the palm of my hand.

I nudged Matt and pointed. ‘Curlew,' I said.

He couldn't spot it at first. Then he found it and half smiled. He took a picture of it, checked it had come out OK and passed the camera to me.

‘Not a whimbrel, then?' he said, teasing. ‘You're positive?'

I shrugged, smiling back. How could I be sure of anything any more? It didn't matter though. We don't need to worry about curlews or geese or anything else. The evil has gone out of them. Gabe says it's gone from Parson's Farm now, and I want to believe him.
Maybe it was never there at all. I just don't know.

We were lucky Gabe came to look for us that night. He'd been out on the moor trying to find us, but then he heard the hounds and came straight here. He says the fire wasn't too bad – it never caught the rest of the house, though it's made a horrible mess of the living room. It looked as if the hounds had already trashed it anyway. Apparently the Hunt staff had been searching for them for hours, all over the moor. They've taken Lightfoot and Lawless to join the pack now, and I'm glad. I don't think I want to see them again.

Matt ambled off down to the edge of the sea and started skimming stones into it. I watched him select them carefully, then throw a five straight off. He's good at a lot of things, though I didn't used to think so. He seems to be getting back to normal, too. Yesterday he was totally drained, as if the whole experience had sapped the lifeblood out of him. Today he's acting more like a human being. But I know there are scars you can't see. We both have them.

I went to join Matt at the waterline. Together we scanned the horizon, the waves lapping our boots. Neither of us seemed to want to talk. It was enough to stare out to sea. But it didn't last long. From high up on the beach there was a cry.

‘Matt! Tilda! Wait for me!'

In a tumble of arms and legs, Kitty dashed across the sand towards us. Behind her was Dad, striding down to us and laughing. He caught up with Kitty, grabbed her and swung her round.

‘So much for keeping this one in the car so she doesn't get cold,' he said. ‘She's not having any of it.'

Kitty giggled as he put her down. ‘I'm all better now,' she said ‘Look.' She did a wobbly pirouette, then raced along the beach, her hair a fluffy cloud of red-gold.

Dad rolled his eyes. ‘Unbelievable,' he said. ‘Only two days ago she was at death's door. And now . . . I don't know where she gets the energy.'

Matt and I exchanged glances. We'd not told him everything. There didn't seem any point. We weren't going to start bringing up the gabbleratchet now. And to be honest, I think we were both more than happy to forget it.

Aunty Caroline waved from the edge of the beach, and I waved back to her. I know that she and Dad talked about the farm when she came down here last night, and they're going to sort something out together. The farm won't need to be sold after all. And this morning Aunty Caroline went to see Mum's
grave, just her on her own, and when she came back I could see she'd been crying.

She's taking Matt to London tonight. He's going to stay with her and Paul, though his dad arrives back from his sailing trip in a few days, so there'll be an escape route if Matt needs it. But he's promised to come back here in the spring half term. We might go sailing together. And maybe I'll go and visit him in the Christmas holidays. Check out London for a couple of days and see some sights. I suppose it won't kill me to leave the farm for a bit. Perhaps even do some Christmas shopping with Aunty Caroline. Who knows?

Dad got in step with us.

‘Look at your sister, Tilda,' he said. ‘Isn't it marvellous? But I'm so sorry about Jez, sweetheart. I know you're missing her terribly. I've spoken to the vet and he thinks she must have had some kind of fit, to have jumped like that. Maybe the fire drove her mad. I don't think she suffered, though.'

But I knew that she had.

I blinked back the tears for about the twelfth time today and watched Kitty playing at the edge of the waves. Then I looked up at the blank grey sky.

Way up high I thought I could see something
move. A V shape, incredibly far off. Maybe I was imagining it. But I reckoned it was a skein of geese, arriving from their autumn migration. Thousands and thousands of miles, each taking turns to lead the formation while the others coasted in their slipstream. The same every year, without fail. It's not like that for us. Matt and I don't know what the future's going to bring. Just that there
is
a future, and that Kitty's there to enjoy it, even though my lovely Jez isn't.

I strained my eyes and watched until I was quite sure they were gone. Then I turned to Matt. ‘Race you to the curlew,' I said. ‘Last one there's a wuss.'

And I ran off in the direction Kitty had taken without once looking behind me.

Acknowledgements

Many thanks to Barry Cunningham, my editor Rachel Leyshon and all at Chicken House for bringing this book into being, and to my agent, Anna Power, for her help and support.

I'm deeply grateful to the Undiscovered Voices 2012 team at the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators for noticing, publicising and anthologising the first two chapters, and to Catherine Johnson, who gave me encouragement and brilliant advice as part of the Apprenticeships in Fiction scheme and beyond. Thanks also for help and advice from AiF director Marion Urch, for comments on early drafts by Chris Waters and Clare Hawkins and for farming wisdom from Ian Forbes and Alan Hill.

And a final thank you to John, who sat through endless re-readings, checked the sails and demanded extra scariness.

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Text © Sandra Greaves 2013.
Cover & interior design by Helen Crawford-White.

First published in Great Britain by The Chicken House in 2013.

This electronic edition published by Scholastic Australia Pty Limited in 2013.

E-PUB/MOBI eISBN 978 1 925063 08 0

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