by Amy Cross
Maybe this place is slightly cooler than I realized at first.
“Suzie!” I call out, turning and stomping up the stairs two at a time until I reach the landing. “Suzie, I give up! You win! Come out, wherever you are!”
I wait.
Nothing.
“Come on,” I continue, “don't make me traipse around the whole place again. I'm not bored enough to -”
Suddenly I hear a bump from nearby. I turn and look to the right, and I realize that something moved in one of the closest rooms. Stepping over to the first door, I peer inside but find that once again there's nothing to see except four bare walls, a bare floor, and a bare ceiling with roof beams passing above. Still, I swear the bump came from in this room, so I take a moment to step forward, and a couple of seconds later I hear another bump coming from one of the walls, followed by a faint scratching sound.
“Suzie?” I whisper, frowning as I make my way over.
Behind the wall, something is definitely scratching harder now, accompanied by a series of soft but persistent bumps.
“Suzie?” I call out, knocking gently on the wall.
The bumps stop immediately.
I wait.
“Suzie?” I say after a moment, “is that you?”
With no reply, I turn and head back out to the landing, and then I quickly go into the next room along and make my way to the other side of the wall. I pause for a moment, listening, before placing my ear against the wall and knocking gently with my right hand.
“Suzie?” I say cautiously, feeling a sense of concern growing in my chest. “Are you... Are you in there?”
Silence.
And then, suddenly, a small voice from inside the wall: “Laura?” Suzie whines, sounding a little less pleased with herself than before. “I'm stuck.”
Chapter Two
Daniel
1608
This village stinks even worse than I remember.
As soon as I reach the main street beyond the bridge, I have to stop for a moment as my nostrils are assailed by the stench of raw, putrid sewage flowing past the side of the road. I would have hoped that the good people of Wyvern might have learned to better look after their homes, but it's clear that nothing much has changed. With no choice but to keep going after my long trek, I make my way across the muddy ground until I reach the Roper's Arms public house, where at least some attempt has been made to wash away the worst swill.
It's as if I was never away. The same sign hangs outside the door, the same drunks are laid out sleeping in the shade, and Cora, the woman who runs the place while her husband drinks himself to death, looks not to have aged a day as she carries a bucket of water out into the yard and tips its contents onto the grass. She turns, then she spots me watching her, and then her face fills with a hint of dread.
“Daniel...” she says after a moment, clearly shocked.
I make my way over to her, trying to avoid the worst patches of muddy ground. “Have these five years treated you well?”
“If you're here for Rosie -”
“I know about Rosie,” I mutter darkly, stepping past her and ducking my head as I enter the public house. “Why else do you think I'm here?”
“There was nothing we could do!” she replies, hurrying after me. “Daniel, please, he just took her...”
“So I understand.” Reaching the bar, I look at the unappealing offerings before letting out a sigh. “Just give me water.”
Hurrying behind the bar, Cora grabs a tankard and fills it from one of the other buckets. “Daniel -”
“You were supposed to look after her,” I mutter.
“And we did!” She sets the tankard down in front of me. “Are you sure you wouldn't like an ale? No charge.”
I glance over at a couple more sleeping, snoring drunks in the corner, before turning back to her. “I don't have time for ale. Not the gut-rotting mixture you serve here, anyway. The last time I drank any of the damn stuff, I felt as if my belly was dying.”
“We looked after Rosie,” she replies defensively. “Don't let anyone tell you different, Daniel, we trained her up and kept her working, and we chased away anyone who came round trying to get under her skirt. There were a lot of people after her, you know. Your sister was a pretty thing, she had no shortage of suitors but we never let them put a finger on her. I even chased one young man away with a broom! I swear, we took good care of her!”
“Then where is she now?” I ask, even though I already know the answer. Part of it, anyway. Stories filtered down to me in London, and finally I set out to see the truth for myself.
“Well...” She pauses. “The thing is, Daniel, your sister was -”
“Taken by a priest hunter,” I reply, interrupting her. “Or a witch hunter, or both, whatever the maniac wants to call himself. Word reached me in London. I walked for seven days to get here. I need the name of the priest hunter who took her, and I need to know where to find him.”
“Oh, Daniel...” She pauses again, with tears in her eyes. “I wouldn't go thinking you can do anything about it. When Nykolas Freeman takes a woman as a suspected witch, they... Well, he always promises to give them a fair trial, but truth be told, no-one ever sees them again. He's about as fair with witches as he is with Catholic priests.”
“Nykolas Freeman,” I mutter. “I've heard that name before.”
“He's well known round these parts. Says he has the order of King James himself to hint down seminary priests wherever he finds them. No-one quite knows when he started looking for witches on top of it all, but he seems to think it's his job to clean up the three counties. They say he only sleeps one hour every night.”
“And where does this man call home?”
“I don't rightly know,” she replies, “but... You've got to believe me, Daniel, we did everything we could. It was about three weeks ago, and I was stood right here with Rosie and I just sent her out with the slop bucket. As it turns out, Freeman and his friends happened to be riding past and they saw her and, I don't know, maybe Rosie looked at him wrong or something, but she caught his attention and he stopped to talk to her. The next thing we all knew, he was saying she was a witch and that he had to take her away to interrogate her. He said something about seeking Satan's mark on her flesh.”
“And you didn't try to stop him?”
“I wouldn't be standing here still breathing if I had. They say Nykolas Freeman doesn't take kindly to being challenged.”
“Witchcraft,” I mutter, barely able to believe what I'm hearing. “Catholic priests, they're real enough, but witches? Does the man really believe in such things?”
“Well...” She pauses, and I can tell that the superstition has reached her too.
“You can't seriously believe that my sister is a witch!” I hiss, downright ready to smack the tankard across the side of her face.
“No!” she replies. “Not Rosie, never! But...” She pauses. “I mean, you hear stories about some of the people who live out past the woods, don't you? Rosie's not a witch, I'd stake my life on that, but...” Her voice trails off, but the meaning of her words is clear. Having spent so long in London, I suppose I'd forgotten just how backward people can be here in the shires.
“At least tell me which way they rode,” I reply, finishing the water and setting the tankard down. “Did they go east, toward Retcham?”
“West.”
“West?” I frown. “What's out there?”
“Like I said, no-one's quite sure where Freeman calls home. I think maybe he doesn't want anyone interfering in his business while he's...”
Again, her voice trails off.
“While he's torturing his victims?” I ask.
“I didn't say that.”
“I've met men like Freeman before,” I mutter, feeling a chill run through my bones. “I know what they do to the women they consider to be witches.” I pause for a moment, unable to keep my mind from straying onto such thoughts. It has been five years since I last saw my sister, and t
he thought of her being left at the mercy of a man like Freeman is too much to bear. “If he took her to the west,” I add finally, “that must mean he has a place somewhere out there, most likely on the far side of the forest.” I turn to head back outside. “I'll find it.”
“But Daniel -”
I glance back at her.
“Well...” A tear rolls down her cheek. “I mean, it has been three weeks since he took her. That's an awfully long time to think she might still...” Another pause. “Also, they say he burned down the Baxendale house last night, on account of thinking there was a priest holed up there, so... It sounds to me as if he might have concluded any business he had with your sister.”
I know exactly what she's suggesting, even if she won't say the words.
“She's the only family I have left in this world,” I tell her firmly, “and I left her here with you because I thought you'd keep her safe while I was away.”
“Of course, but -”
“And you didn't,” I sneer. “Just be glad I don't have time to take a torch to this whole miserable place.”
“No-one can stand in the way of Nykolas Freeman when he decides he wants someone,” she replies, as I turn and walk out through the door. “No-one's ever gone after him and come back to tell the tale, either.”
“Then I'll be the first,” I mutter as I reach the yard. Somehow, the stench of this village seems to have become even worse in just a few minutes, and I have to wave away several flies as I make my way back toward the road. A nearby drunk, sleeping in a patch of raw sewage, looks up at me and mutters something, but I ignore him. The thought of my sister being dragged away by a man like Nykolas Freeman is enough to chill my bones, but there's no point dwelling on such things. For so long as there's a chance she might still be alive, I cannot rest until I have found her.
And if she is dead, I will make Freeman scream before I kill him.
Chapter Three
Laura
“Trust her to find a way between the walls,” I mutter a few hours later, sitting with Mum on the back porch and looking out at the garden. Night has fallen now and the lights from the house only spread so far, with the garden's other end shrouded in darkness. “I swear to God, she's getting more rat-like with each birthday.”
“She's inquisitive,” Mum replies, sipping at her still-steaming coffee. She turns and looks up at the house. “Still, you're right. She found that secret passage remarkably quickly. Looked like it was carved right into the stone.”
“Don't you think it's creepy that people can fit inside the walls?” I ask, taking a sip of still-too-hot green tea. “I mean, why would someone even build a house like that?”
“Sometimes there are very good reasons to hide,” she replies, still looking up at the windows. “This house is six hundred years old, Laura. Can you imagine how much the world has changed in that time? There's almost never been a period in British history when one group or another wasn't being persecuted. Catholics, Protestants, Irish, gay people, black people, women accused of being witches...” She turns to me with a smile. “You have no idea how lucky you have it, growing up in the twenty-first century.”
“So people actually hid in those gaps?” I ask, feeling a shiver run through my bones. “Great. Thanks for letting me know.” I take another sip of tea as I look out at the dark garden. “For future reference, if something like that crops up again, feel free to lie to me. I don't need to know the truth about all the creepy stuff that might have happened here.”
“You don't want to learn about the history of this part of the country?”
“Uh, not really,” I mutter. “Stuff that happened a few hundred years ago really doesn't seem that relevant right now.”
Taking a deep breath, I watch the darkness for a moment before realizing that Mum is staring at me. I wait for her to look away, before finally turning to her.
“What?” I ask.
“Wanna talk about it?”
“Talk about what?”
“Your father.”
I shake my head, before sipping more tea.
“Even Suzie talks about him occasionally,” she continues. “She asks where he is now, and if she'll ever see him again.”
“Suzie's a kid,” I point out. “It's natural for her to ask dumb questions. She's five years old, for God's sake.”
“And you're only sixteen.”
“We talked about Dad while he was sick,” I reply, “and before his funeral, and during his funeral, and after his funeral. We talked about Dad more than enough. It's been six months now, and he's gone. There's no point talking about someone after they're gone, they just...” I pause, trying to work out how to explain it all to her. “They just stop existing, they stop affecting anything, so it's best to just forget all about them. What's the point of constantly remembering a dead person?”
“Laura -”
“I should get to bed,” I add, standing up and heading to the back door. “I'm sure the first night in this creepy old place will be a laugh riot and -” Suddenly I turn as I realize I can hear a sound in the distance, somewhere out beyond the trees. I listen for a moment, but it's already gone.
“You okay?” Mum asks.
“Did you hear a horse?” I reply with a frown.
“A horse?”
“I just...” I pause for a moment, convinced that I briefly heard the sound of someone riding a horse not far from here. I wait, but whatever it was – if it was there at all – it's gone now. “I guess it was nothing,” I mutter, turning and heading inside before Mum can start talking about Dad again. “I need to brush my teeth and get some sleep. After all, we've got a lot of work to do tomorrow, and I'd rather focus on that instead of talking about the past all the time.”
***
Opening my eyes suddenly, I stare up at the dark ceiling and for a few seconds I have no idea where I am. I blink a couple of times, aware of a sense of disorientation, and then I sit up only to see the lead-lattice window near my bed. As I watch moonlit trees gently swaying outside in the breeze, everything comes flooding back to me.
Oh yeah.
Right.
Mum moved us to some ancient house in the middle of nowhere.
Sighing, I switch on the lamp by my bed and look around at the bare room. With only a few essential items having come with us in the car, I have almost none of my stuff yet, and the almost-empty room feels cold and unforgiving. It doesn't help, of course, that every time I look at one of the walls I find myself imagining a narrow space behind them. I'm not exactly the easily-spooked type, but still, six hundred years is plenty of time for a house to pick up some serious history, and I can't help but notice that one section of my bedroom wall is made of the old stones that were part of the original house. Telling myself that the last thing I need is to let my imagination run wild, I switch off the lamp and settle back down on the bed, ready to get back to sleep.
It takes a moment, but finally I'm able to get comfortable.
And that's when I realize that I need to pee.
“Please no,” I mutter, turning onto my side in the hope that I can get to sleep anyway. I manage to drift for a few minutes, but when I change position a little I'm brought back to wakefulness by a little extra pressure on my bladder.
Sighing, I roll onto my other side and close my eyes. There is no way I'm getting up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom, not in this old, cold place. The universe can't be so unfair.
After a couple of minutes, I open my eyes again. My bladder is definitely not going to let this opportunity go, and I'm starting to realize that there's no way I'll manage to sleep like this.
Still, I'm determined to try.
A few minutes later, sighing, I pull the duvet aside and climb out of bed, immediately feeling the cold wooden floor against my bare feet.
“I hate you,” I mutter out loud, letting my bladder know that I'm annoyed as I hurry over to the door and then out into the dark corridor. I have no idea where I'll find a light switc
h, so I simply fumble my way through the shadows until I almost walk straight into the wall. Turning, I feel my way carefully toward the far end of the landing.
Heading to the bathroom door, I push it open and step inside, only to find myself in a small cupboard.
“Great,” I sigh, stepping out and trying the next door, which mercifully turns out to be the bathroom.
A few minutes later, once everything is taken care of and my bladder has got its way, I step back out onto the landing and head toward my room, but after a moment I stop and look down the stairs. A patch of moonlight is shining through the windows on either side of the front door, illuminating the patterned tiles on the floor. I take a moment to enjoy the sound of silence, and to be honest there's a part of me that's starting to maybe appreciate the idea of being away from London. After all, the air out here is surprisingly fresh and clear, and it's nice not to have to zone out the sounds of planes passing overhead and trains rattling over nearby bridges. Maybe, just maybe, I can get used to this.
I mean, okay, I'm away from all my friends, and I have to start a new school, and there are no shopping malls nearby, but this move is important to Mum and I guess I don't want to become one of those bratty teenagers who make a mess of everything. Stopping next to another of the doors, I'm about to push it open when I realize that it's the wrong room. I turn, before hearing a faint sniffing sound from nearby, and after a moment I realize that Mum's crying. My heart immediately feels like it's about to break, and I want to go in and comfort her, but I guess she wouldn't exactly thank me.
I turn to head back to my room.
Before I can take another step, however, I hear a slow creaking sound from downstairs, culminating in a gentle bump, as if a door has swung open.
I freeze, waiting for some hint that Suzie might be down there, but silence has returned. I can see that the front door is still shut, and the back door has loose window panes that rattle whenever it's opened, so the door that opened just now has to have been in some other part of the house.