The Hunting Ground

by Cliff McNish

  No need to tell Elliott that, of course. He had zero plans to go anywhere near it.

  ‘You’ve changed your tune,’ he said, when he and Ben were back in his bedroom.

  Ben was whistling as he put his toothbrush and a couple of shirts into a carry-all. He took his time folding his pyjamas. ‘It’s OK. We’re going. I get it,’ he said. ‘I’m not happy – I think it’s wrong to leave Eve here – but, well, there’s nothing I can do about it, is there, so …’ He shrugged.

  ‘What’s that?’ Elliott said. He’d seen something white poking from Ben’s pyjama top – a creased sheet of paper.

  ‘Dunno,’ Ben said. He removed the sheet, unfolded it. ‘Oh, wow!’ With open-mouthed excitement he handed it to Elliott.

  The sketch showed a large doll’s house. The front of the house had been removed to show five partitioned floors with twelve rooms. Each room was filled with dolls. In front of the doll’s house stood Eve. She was holding out a hand in a hopeful way towards a boy standing to her left. The boy was Elliott. On the other side of her, already holding Eve’s hand in the sketch, was Ben. The three of them formed a little human daisy-chain. It was a happy-looking picture. A girl with her friends.

  Elliott stared at the sketch. ‘Me and you and her,’ he whispered.

  ‘And a doll’s house,’ Ben added breathlessly. ‘Didn’t you say there was a doll’s house in the attic?’

  ‘Yes, but—’

  ‘But what?’ Ben cried. ‘That’s it! That’s what she’s telling us! She does want to play! I told you! Come on!’

  Before Elliott could stop him, Ben was on his way out of the room.

  ‘Hey, where are you going?’ Elliott ran hard after him, but Ben had always been fast, and Elliott only caught up with him on the fifth floor.

  The ladder to the attic was inexplicably lowered. Elliott wondered if Dad had been fetching stuff from inside. Ben was already clambering back down the steps, a huge box balanced in his arms.

  ‘See! This is what she wants!’ he said. ‘She must have come in during the night and put the sketch in my pocket to let me know. She came in when we were asleep, Elliott. She could have hurt us, but she didn’t. I told you she wasn’t dangerous. She only wanted to ask us for help, so she could play with this …’ Ben studied the box, turning it over. ‘It must be too hard for her to fix up on her own,’ he said. ‘Before we go we have to set it up. Come on!’

  ‘Ben—’

  ‘No, stop arguing! It won’t take long if we do it together,’ Ben growled. ‘What’s the matter with you? At least this way she has something to play with after we abandon her.’

  Elliott hesitated. He had grave doubts about Eve, but what was the harm in erecting the doll’s house? They were already packed to go. It would give Ben something to concentrate on for an hour or so until Dad was ready.

  ‘All right,’ he said. ‘But that’s all we’re doing. We’ll put it up and then leave it here, OK?’

  Ben smiled. ‘OK.’

  It was a Victorian doll’s house. Lovingly packaged, the contents were still wrapped in all their original cardboard boxes. Elliott read the fancy label. A magnificent home, dignified and grand. A home to delight and grace the play of every girl.

  Ben tapped the box happily. ‘Perfect,’ he said. ‘She’s going to love this.’

  It took a few minutes to unwrap all the pieces of wood for the structure. Ben laid them out, while Elliott did most of the assembly. Once the roof was ready, they both stood back to assess what they’d built.

  ‘Wow,’ Elliott said, genuinely awed by the doll’s house’s unexpected size.

  With the chimney fitted it was over three feet high and two deep. Inside were twelve lavishly furnished rooms. Some of them had textured carpets and pasted-on wallpaper. Surprisingly realistic paper-flames licked the fire-grate in the living room.

  ‘Ha! Check this out!’ Ben laughed. He’d found a tiny toilet with a hinged wooden seat. He waggled it up and down. ‘I don’t suppose this gets used a lot by the dolls.’

  ‘I guess not.’

  The dolls themselves were amazingly life-like. Elliott had expected shiny Cinderella-types. These figurines were much more impressive than that. Crafted out of wood, they were all unique. Each had been individually painted with flesh-tones for the skin, brighter colours for the clothes. There were dolls of boys and girls, but surprisingly most of the figures were men and women, variously dressed. One red-headed woman had been sculpted with a pleated cotton skirt. Something must have gone wrong with the creamy paint used on her skin, though, because it was dark, pitted and flaking.

  ‘You think Eve’ll like these?’ Elliott asked dubiously, examining them.

  ‘Oh yeah,’ Ben said. ‘I think she’ll like them all.’

  Elliott watched as Ben unwrapped items of furniture and placed them in the appropriate rooms. Deeply absorbed, he finished doing that and then grabbed hold of two dolls, unselfconsciously waggling them around.

  ‘Happy now?’ Elliott asked. He couldn’t help smiling.

  ‘Yeah,’ Ben said, giving him a sheepish grin. ‘I suppose we’re done here. I’m hungry. You?’

  ‘Sure. Let’s see what’s left in the kitchen.’

  Making their way downstairs, they found a bag of cheese rolls Dad had prepared for the journey, and took a couple.

  Dad popped in to check they were OK while they ate. ‘We’re going in less than an hour,’ he told them. ‘Make sure you’re ready.’

  They both nodded.

  A few minutes later, Ben gave Elliott an eager look. ‘C’mon, let’s just check,’ he said.

  ‘Check what?’

  ‘If she’s playing with the doll’s house, stupid.’

  ‘Ben—’

  With a hoot, Ben sprang up from his chair, laughing as he beat Elliott to the door. He sprinted up the first staircase.

  ‘Ben, for God’s sake!’ Elliott yelled, but his brother’s laughter just rolled back to him from above.

  By the time Elliott reached the fifth floor he was out of breath. The doll’s house stood exactly where they’d left it in the corridor.

  ‘See?’ Elliott said, annoyed. ‘She hasn’t found it yet. Come on. That’s enough. Let’s go.’

  ‘She has found it,’ Ben whispered. ‘Look. The dolls have been moved.’

  At first Elliott couldn’t see what Ben meant. Then he noticed a straggly blonde-haired doll lying face down at the bottom of some steps.

  ‘A is for Alice, who fell down the stairs,’ Ben murmured. ‘Remember the verse? We didn’t leave her like that.’

  Elliott felt his pulse race as he reached for the doll of a young boy. With a bright blue cape draped across his shoulders, the boy lay face-down in a posture of exhaustion.

  ‘L is for Leo, who gave his all,’ Ben whispered. ‘Remember him? Remember what he was wearing when Cullayn sent him up the slope?’

  Elliott spotted the red-headed doll with the flaking skin. Her head had been rammed up against the paper-flames of the fireplace.

  ‘S is for Sandra, burning bright,’ Ben said.

  Elliott’s nerves twitched. ‘How come you remember the rhymes so well?’

  Ben shrugged. ‘Catchy, I guess. Hold on. What’s this?’

  A hole, filled with water, had been dug into the grounds of the house. The figure of a man, trying to claw his way out, was arranged inside.

  ‘O is for Oliver, who splashed till he sank,’ Ben muttered.

  ‘I don’t remember that verse,’ Elliott said.

  Several dolls were in bizarre places. Elliott didn’t want to look too closely, though he sensed they all related to the rhymes. Which meant, of course, that Eve almost certainly had played with the doll’s house before. And then Elliott realised it was worse than that. These dolls didn’t belong to the original doll’s house at all. Eve must have made them herself. Must have whittled away endlessly at the wood and painted them by hand. And where had she got the descriptions of the dead people from? Only one man knew tho
se details. He must have been perched on her shoulder for hours to achieve individual likenesses like this …

  With terror rising inside him, Elliott whispered, ‘Let’s go.’

  Ben didn’t resist when Elliott grabbed his arm, but only because there was no need.

  A shadow had spread across the wall behind him.

  Eve stood inside that shadow. As straight and still as one of the dolls, she was waiting at the end of the corridor, utterly calm.

  Disregarding Elliott, she came swiftly forward. Her eyes were glued to the doll’s house. ‘You stay here,’ she ordered Katerina, unceremoniously dumping her on the floor. Then she changed her mind, picked Katerina up again, and offered her head-first to Elliott. ‘To play with,’ she explained, when he didn’t immediately understand. ‘Don’t you want to play?’

  She grinned, and so did Ben.

  While Elliott tried to come up with some kind of reply, Ben said smoothly, ‘I’ll play,’ lifted Katerina and rocked her like a baby in his arms.

  ‘Not like that,’ Eve giggled, suddenly very girl-like, amused at the overly precious way Ben was carrying Katerina.

  ‘Do you like the house we built?’ he asked. ‘We made it especially for you.’

  ‘Ben, we need to get out of here,’ Elliott said.

  Ben ignored him.

  Eve circled the doll’s house a few times, glowing with happiness. With great care she reached out towards the roof. ‘May I?’ she asked, and Elliott realised that she was asking for permission to touch it. Was that amusement in her voice?

  When Ben smiled and nodded, Eve fetched up a man-doll with frizzy black hair and made clop-clop noises. ‘G is for Guy, crushed under a horse,’ she said. She stroked the pale white limbs of a woman. ‘J is for Jane, now ageless and white, and also …’ she threw another doll hard against the nearest wall ‘… for Jack at the end of his fight.’

  Standing on her tiptoes, Eve placed a tall man on the roof, then spilled him off. ‘K is for blah, blah, blah, blah, blah …’ Laughing, she snatched Katerina back from Ben, walking her stiff plastic legs robotically towards the doll’s house.

  Elliott tugged at Ben’s arm. He whispered to just come.

  Ben resisted, hissed back, ‘Not yet. We can find out things. Stay a minute.’ He pulled away from Elliott. ‘And who are you?’ he asked Katerina, touching her plastic cheek. ‘A friend?’

  Eve nodded vehemently, twisting Katerina’s face this way and that.

  Elliott tried to work out if he could drag Ben down the stairs. It wouldn’t be easy if Ben resisted.

  ‘Ask a question,’ Ben said to him. ‘Then I’ll come with you.’

  ‘My name’s Elliott.’ Elliott looked straight at Eve. ‘And this is my brother.’ Eve giggled. ‘We’re a family who moved in recently, and—’

  ‘This is Katerina,’ Eve interrupted him. ‘She can’t talk. She can only do this.’ Eve made Katerina curtsey.

  ‘What about your own brother?’ Elliott said, seeing an opportunity. ‘What about Theo?’ He kept his tone light. ‘And your Mum and Dad? Where are they? What happened to them?’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know,’ Eve said, looking disinterested. Then she gave Elliott a crafty smile. ‘Yes, I do! I do know! I do!’

  She retreated to the staircase. ‘Come and find out,’ she said. ‘Come and I’ll show you.’

  ‘Follow her,’ Ben whispered.

  Elliott did so warily, but only as far as the landing. ‘No,’ he said. ‘We’re not going any further.’

  Eve glanced uncertainly up at one of the portraits of Cullayn on the wall, then retreated a few more steps. Ben attempted to follow, but Elliott caught his arm. ‘No.’

  Ben said to Eve, ‘It’s OK, don’t mind him. Have you lost your mummy? I haven’t got a mum, either. We’re here on our own, just like you.’

  Eve’s face instantly transformed into one of amusement. She came up to Ben and arranged a small arm around his shoulders. ‘Ah, you’ve lost your mummy,’ she said. ‘That’s bad. Children die in this house, you know.’

  ‘What happened to you, Eve?’ Elliott asked.

  ‘I’ve got to go now,’ she told him. ‘Daddy wants me back.’

  ‘Who’s Daddy?’

  ‘He’s right here.’ She stared behind her, into the corridor depths.

  With his heart racing, Elliott looked where Eve looked. He saw only emptiness.

  ‘He’s very close,’ Eve insisted. ‘I’ve got to go now or he’ll get mad.’ Then, with eyes shining in sudden delight, she ran fast towards Ben, shot out her hand and yanked him away with her.

  ‘Hey!’ Ben shouted as she hauled him down the staircase.

  Eve dug her nails into his arm to make him squeal. Then, throwing her chin back, she laughed and – flicking a challenging glance at Elliott – ran on with Ben, scurrying fast down one flight of stairs after another. Elliott ran after her, barely able to keep up.

  Eve raced across the hall towards the East Wing, pulling Ben along. His feet slid across the marble floor like a mishandled rag doll.

  The entrance to the East Wing was open again. Janey Roberts stood next to it. She was holding a screwdriver. When Elliott stopped to stare at her in disbelief, she offered him a terse nod of acknowledgement, then moved aside to let Eve and the protesting Ben go past.

  Eve gave Ben a little kiss on the cheek and dragged him into the East Wing.

  Elliott hesitated, watching Janey depart through a door leading to the library. Then, hearing a muffled shriek from Ben, he yelled ‘Dad!’ at the top of his voice and ran inside the East Wing.

  17

  THE DRIFT OF CORRIDORS

  Eve had a ferocious grip on Ben’s arm, and with a swing of her heels she turned left, dragging him with her.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Elliott bellowed. ‘Leave him alone!’

  By the time he reached the same bend in the corridor both Eve and Ben were gone. Then he spotted the flash of Eve’s blonde hair bouncing against her shoulders at an intersection ahead. Elliott raced towards her, then stopped when he realised that Eve had led him a few more critical steps inside the East Wing.

  ‘Ben!’ he screamed, determined not to get lost. ‘Where are you? Shout if you can hear me!’’

  No answer. Realising the only option that made sense was to find Dad so that they could search for Ben together, Elliott retraced his steps. Or thought he did. Although he’d only made four or five switches of direction he had misremembered one turn. That was enough. One incorrect decision led to three others, and moments later he arrived at one of the dreaded four-way intersections. From here, of course, he could go straight ahead, left or right. Or, if he wanted, he could always go back.

  With a shudder of foreboding tearing through him, Elliott came to a crashing halt. He couldn’t believe he was back in this place, facing the same numbing choices.

  Had Dad heard his shout? Unless he’d been close, it was unlikely.

  It’s OK, Elliott reassured himself, forcing himself to breathe slowly. Don’t panic like last time. Even if you’re lost, you can look for Ben.

  Calling out Ben’s name, Elliott strode down the corridors. He went past endless portraits. Ironic smiles played across the owner’s lips.

  Two can play at that game, Elliott thought. He started knocking portraits off the walls. When that got no response he smashed the frames underfoot as well, burying his heel in all the faces of Vincent Cullayn. ‘Come on, show yourself!’ Elliott raged.

  Then his foot crunched against something. An expanse of paper lay under his shoes. Even in the dim corridor Elliott could tell it was one of Eve’s trademark sketches.

  Picking it up with both hands, he spread the paper out.

  In the sketch he was standing on the carpet holding the sketch, just as he was in fact doing now. Eve was behind him in the sketch as well, and Elliott couldn’t resist looking over his shoulder to check she wasn’t there. Relieved that the corridor was empty, he turned back to the sketch, squinting to make out the deta
ils.

  And saw something behind Eve – something that was too large to be Ben.

  Throwing the sketch down, Elliott twisted around, expecting to be attacked.

  When he couldn’t see anyone he moved on warily.

  Five minutes of walking and calling out for Ben later, Elliott decided to try a room. It hadn’t worked the last time he was in the East Wing, but the doors couldn’t all lead nowhere. He picked the nearest one. It led into a bathroom. The room looked innocent enough, and Elliott walked inside. At the back end of the bathroom there was a large circular mirror. Elliott ignored it, leaving the room via the door at its rear.

  He found himself in another corridor. A few corridors later he tried a different door. It led into a bathroom with a large circular mirror.

  The same room as before?

  It couldn’t be, could it? Cold terror filtered through Elliott at the prospect that he was simply going in circles. He couldn’t afford to do that. To make sure he’d know if he entered the bathroom again, he used his finger to mark a big cross in the dust coating the mirror. Dozens of corridors later, hoarse from calling Ben’s name, he randomly entered another room.

  It was a bathroom. A bathroom with a large circular mirror.

  With the sense of being on top of a dam that was about to break, Elliott made himself walk up to the glass.

  There, in the mirror, was a shakily-written cross. His cross.

  But words which hadn’t been there before were also written on the mirror. Elliott had to get extremely close to the glass to read them. The tight, angular style was not one he recognised:

  Turn your eyes

  Upon this dark glass

  And see not yourself,

  But me