The Hunting Ground

by Cliff McNish

  ‘Hurry,’ she ordered, when he resisted her tug. ‘I can’t keep this open forever! It’s only a trick to enter without him seeing. A reshaping of air. Come on!’

  Elliott wavered – then let her drag him inside.

  He fell forward onto the burgundy carpet. Close up, it smelled of mould and dry rot. He stood up fast, prepared to defend himself. The entrance corridor was the same dark length it had always been.

  ‘Too gloomy for you?’ Janey inquired. ‘I agree. Cullayn’s had his way for far too long. Let’s change things.’ She raised the index finger of her right hand and suddenly the entire corridor was bathed in bluish light. ‘That’s better,’ she said. ‘A parlour trick only, but useful. You can let go of my hand now, by the way.’

  Elliott did so.

  Pasted to the wall on their left was a portrait. It showed Janey being chased into the hunting ground by Cullayn. It was not an oil painting but a new sketch, quick and crude.

  ‘I see Cullayn’s asked Eve to pen me a greeting card,’ Janey said tartly. ‘How nice. It means he knows I’m coming but, since he’s not here to greet me himself, not quite when.’

  She smiled. Elliott couldn’t believe she could react with such calm equanimity to the picture, and, though he still didn’t trust her, it did give him more confidence. She casually knocked the sketch to the floor and kicked it away. ‘Oops.’

  The next sketch on the same wall stopped Elliott dead. It was one of him being chased up the slope – chased by a triumvirate: Eve, Cullayn and Ben.

  ‘Just another little gift to scare us,’ Janey said evenly. ‘Don’t look at the pictures or do, Elliott, whatever.’ She shrugged dismissively. ‘Cullayn likes to gather you in with his artwork. He always overestimated his talent in that regard in my view, and Eve’s hardly improved under his tutelage.’

  ‘Is that where his power is?’ Elliott asked, amazed at her flippancy. ‘In the portraits?’

  ‘Partly.’ Janey allowed herself a tinkle of dark laughter. ’It’s only paint, though. Always was. Daubs. Smudges. But invested with the owner’s will, sufficient to guide an unwitting eye. Enough, if you look for long enough, to show you what he wants. To snare Ben.’

  ‘And you,’ Elliott noted, thinking of the diary.

  ‘Indeed. My eyes were ever drawn to his goofy teeth.’

  Janey punched a hole directly through the sketch of Elliott, inviting him to do the same. He did.

  ‘Feel better?’

  Elliott nodded.

  ‘Good.’ Janey began moving smoothly down the now well-lit corridor. She never slackened her pace or speeded up or altered her path by even one degree, confident in where her stride was taking her. From time to time she casually ripped portraits from their mounts and dumped them on the carpet.

  ‘Why do you keep doing that?’ Elliott asked.

  ‘Because he won’t like it. So we should keep doing it, eh? Stop skulking behind me, Elliott. That’s what Cullayn likes, bringing everyone to their knees.’

  ‘But if we mess with the portraits won’t he know we’re here?’

  ‘The portraits don’t report to him, Elliott,’ Janey said, amused. ‘Those in the house are positioned to ensnare his victims. Inside here, they merely serve to terrorise. We’ll be long gone before he finds out what we’ve done to his precious little babies.’

  Janey sped up. The shadows of the East Wing retreated at the rise of her finger. In no time at all they passed three intersection points.

  ‘Ben ran a little too fast into this,’ Janey muttered, patting a wall. ‘I apologise for that. An accident. Only a bump on the head, however. Better than Cullayn getting hold of him.’

  ‘Why didn’t Cullayn just grab Ben the first time he came in?’

  ‘And end the fun just like that?’ Janey snapped her fingers. ‘Surely you’ve learned by now that Cullayn likes to extend his pleasure. Especially since he’s had such lean pickings recently. Poor man. No fresh guts to spill on his hunting ground. Plus there’s the small matter that this time he wanted to blood Eve on the hunt. She’s his little protégée. He wants her in on the act. He’s been preparing her for this moment for a very long time. Is she ready to kill in cold blood? Even Cullayn’s not sure. We’d better hope she is not.’

  Janey’s dark eyes twinkled. Elliott had no idea what to make of her carefree sarcasm. It was the perfect antidote to the brooding atmosphere of the East Wing, but was it real or only to dispel her own fear?

  ‘Fifty years ago you tried to stop Cullayn and failed,’ he said. ‘You were confident that time as well.’

  ‘I had a lot of sincerely earnest passion then, didn’t I?’ she admitted. ‘Spent hours and hours chatting away to ghost kids, winsomely dallying around graves. That idiot girl’s gone. I had my gift, but not one clue what to do with it.’

  ‘Do you now?’

  ‘Oh yes. Keep up, Elliott,’ she said amiably, ‘and watch out for an attack from the side corridors. We’re getting close to the heart of the East Wing. I doubt Cullayn will let us get there without a surprise or two.’

  ‘He’s listening, isn’t he?’ Elliott said. ‘He’s listening right now.’

  Janey appraised Elliott a moment. ‘Indeed. Cullayn’s ever a curious, scenting presence, especially here in his filthy digs. A mind tuning in, as it were. He will not know exactly where we are, but he’ll be catching snatches of our conversation. So we must be careful what we offer him, mustn’t we?’ She gave Elliott a quiet, measured look. ‘If he senses any weakness, he’ll not hesitate to exploit it. Remember the way he had you screaming like a little boy in here? He loves that sound. He’d like to hear it again.’

  A chill crept through Elliott. ‘You saw that? You were here when it happened? You let him do that to me?’

  Janey folded her arms. ‘Surely you realise I did more than that? I had to help him scare you as much as I could. Cullayn was watching, wouldn’t have accepted anything less. Anyway, whatever use you are here now is only because I let him panic you then.’

  When she saw Elliott staring furiously at her, Janey shook her head.

  ‘You used us as bait,’ Elliott said, outraged.

  ‘Of course,’ she grunted. ‘How else to encourage the hunter back to the field of play? The diary was useful. A joy, actually. Bless Theo for writing it. So handy. All those emotions close to the heart. I only had to divide it into tasty morsels and open the East Wing so that Ben went in. I knew he’d be curious. Cullayn’s portraits had already led him in there, but the diary was just a little extra push to keep him thinking about it. Eve found Ben first, actually, fey flit little thing that she is. But I knew she’d skip off to tell Daddy all about him.’

  Janey’s tone left Elliott wanting to hit her.

  ‘I had to,’ she said. ‘Cullayn knows I’m still the only one who can stop him, so he planned to stay in this house until I was dead and gone to the other side. He’d never have come out in the open without an incentive. I had to provide him with that, get him to trust me, get in his good books. This was the only way to do it. If Cullayn escapes from Glebe House, he’ll go on killing forever.’

  ‘How do you stop him?’

  ‘Ghost ways.’ When Elliott frowned, Janey flattened her palms together. ‘Look. See? No gap between my fingers, yes? And yet …’ She gradually opened her fingers again, creating a three-dimensional pocket between her hands ‘ … space where it was not. From nothing, something. The question is how to use it.’

  Elliott stared dubiously at her.

  ‘The ghosts travel in the breaches of our world, Elliott,’ Janey told him, looking tired. ‘Interruptions between surfaces, openings, wherever those may be. Walls are not solid. Bricks have pores. Skilled ghosts, like Cullayn, like dear Sam, make their own breaches and use them. Sam’s had a whole lifetime with me to perfect my understanding.’ Janey steepled her fingers and brought her thumbs together below, creating a lozenge-shaped opening. ‘Try to get though the gap,’ she said. Elliott prodded his finger at it. Felt resist
ance in the invisible air where there should have been none. Pressed harder. Found his finger slipping sideways, deflected.

  Janey smiled and reached for a door handle leading off the hall. ‘Let’s try this room, shall we?’

  ‘Wait,’ Elliott said. ‘Answer this first. You admit you used my family to get to Cullayn. But how were you going to stop him before he did something really bad to us?’

  When Janey answered it was the first time he saw a chink in her confidence.

  ‘I had ways,’ she muttered.

  ‘No, you didn’t, did you?’ Elliott said, reading her expression accurately. ‘You didn’t expect it to be anything like this bad. Cullayn’s more powerful than you realised. You’ve overestimated yourself again. Look at Eve—’

  ‘Pffft, Eve.’ Janey waved her fingers. ‘A child. And it still took Cullayn half a century to turn her into what she is now. See how weak he is, Theo? On the evening of your arrival, Ben’s distant snoring was already of more interest to her than anything Cullayn could offer. She’s still a child at heart. Remember that. We’re depending on it.’

  Janey gave Elliott a fierce warning glare – shut up, say nothing more – and then said loudly, ‘Such righteous anger in the boy, Cullayn. Do you hear his whine? Are you listening? The pair of us have made quite an adverse impression on him. He doesn’t understand yet that the only reason he is still alive is because you are enjoying the game. He thinks it’s all about right and wrong. He doesn’t seem to grasp that the only important question is whether he is just going to sit down and cry when you start to chase him, or instead do whatever he must to keep his father and brother alive.’ She glared at Elliott. ‘Well, are you?’

  ‘Are you?’ Elliott shouted back.

  ‘I’m here for other reasons,’ Janey tutted brusquely. Then she yawned, looking sideways at him. ‘But honestly, Elliott, why on earth have I bothered to get you to join me in here? You’ll give in at the first hurdle, I can tell. You’re hardly even worth the price of admission. Are you really ready to risk everything for your father and Ben?’

  Elliott hesitated, but only for a second.

  ‘Yes,’ he said.

  Janey gave him an elaborate curtsey, executed with genuine grace.

  ‘In that case, challenge is made and set,’ she stated, raising her chin. Her voice was abruptly bell-loud and clear, the announcing of a summons. Then she stepped away from Elliott – as if offering room for someone else to enter the space between them.

  ‘It’s a fair fight, guv’nor,’ Janey said to Elliott, falling into slang. She laughed. ‘You came willingly enough, boy. I didn’t lead you in or promise a damn thing. Cullayn always prefers his guests to be willing. So, we’ll do it. We will have it.’ She looked to the corridor end and in a clipped tone cried, ‘Let the hunter and the hunted converge!’

  Elliott felt his stomach clench. ‘You are working with Cullayn!’ he rasped.

  He waited, open-mouthed. He knew something terrible was about to happen, and then it did happen.

  He heard a sound: the opening of a door, the opening of many doors.

  Janey sniffed, leaning casually against the nearest wall. She picked idly at her nails. ‘Cullayn’s right about one thing,’ she said. ‘The longer I’m in this place the more I realise it’s not at its best in these floodlights. Too garish. Shadows and dark work better with this particular decor.’

  She flicked a petal off her dress. ‘You think you know darkness, Elliott,’ she said. ‘But it comes in many forms. There is darkness, and then again there is darkness akin to the final darkness that will arrive for us all at the end of the world. That’s what I’m going to give you now. That’s Cullayn’s darkness.’ As she raised her hands, a shiver of terror passed though Elliott.

  ‘No!’ he yelled, but Janey laughed and brought her hands together, and as she did so every mote of light in the East Wing was snuffed out.

  23

  TAKE MY HAND

  The darkness was absolute, supreme, pure, utter.

  ‘Quick!’ Janey hissed, dragging Elliott towards her. ‘Now’s our chance. Even Cullayn needs some light to find us. And I’ve extinguished every bit. We must get away from here!’

  ‘No, you’re working for him!’ Elliott thundered. ‘Get away.’ He shoved at her in the total darkness. ‘I won’t do anything you say.’

  ‘Don’t be a fool,’ she growled in his ear. ‘That was just a show! He was listening! Haven’t you learned anything yet? Don’t give him any advantage. Only surefootedness will save us.’ She created a tiny candle brightness in her hand and held it out in front of her, already striding away. ‘This light and no more. Can you see me? Wait.’ She stopped, with a flick of her hands cupped her ears. ‘There. He can’t hear us. Not until he gets close.’

  Elliott stayed where he was.

  ‘Take my hand,’ Janey insisted. When he did not she strode impatiently towards him. ‘You’re right, Elliott,’ she whispered. ‘I did underestimate him, but he was eavesdropping on our conversation and I couldn’t have him knowing my mistake. I delivered him everything – Ben and your father all packaged up, and he thinks I’m delivering you, too. He thinks I’m still in his pocket, or he would not have even allowed me in here. Don’t you understand? Everything I did was to get us this far inside. From here we can go to where we have to be. The knight’s room. It’s our only chance.’

  When Elliott still did not trust her, Janey’s voice became urgent. ‘Not directly, but by the backdoor, Elliott. I told you! Via the link. Via Eve. The two of them together are way too powerful for me to face. We’ve got to get her alone. This is the only way.’

  Elliott reluctantly followed Janey down the corridor as she hurried, illuminated by the hand’s width band of light. ‘I’m sorry I had to put you through that performance,’ she said, ‘but Cullayn gave me a plan to follow and I had to go part-way with him. Eve’s the key. She’s been here so long that almost half of Cullayn’s power has dribbled into her. That’s why you can see her. She’s made of the same powerful stuff as Cullayn now. And that’s our advantage. Because if we can snatch her out, separate them, I might be strong enough to fight him on my own.’

  ‘How do we separate them?’ Elliott demanded, trembling but determined Janey wouldn’t see it.

  ‘We coax her. That’s the plan. What’s the one thing in the East Wing that makes you stop and gaze, Elliott?’

  ‘The portraits.’

  ‘And for Eve, one portrait in particular. I’m not sure why she’s so fixated on it, but even Cullayn’s attention wavers sometimes, and when it does there’s one room, and a single figure, that she always hurries off to see. Cullayn will already be sniffing us out. But he won’t come himself, not at first. He’ll send Eve. She’ll probably hide from us, but I know which room she’ll enter. She won’t be able to resist it. And we’ll briefly have her to ourselves.’

  Janey kept the pace up, but from her occasional stumbles Elliott could tell she was beginning to tire. She guided him right and left, and left again, until they were in a corridor that to him looked identical to all the others. There she stopped, flexing her fingers with a flourish. As her fingertips parted, the dim natural daylight of the East Wing returned.

  ‘We need to invite her in,’ Janey explained.

  They entered the second room on the right of the corridor. Inside, there was a window. It was the first window Elliott had seen in the East Wing and, predictably, it looked towards the slope of the hunting ground.

  ‘This room is the place Cullayn always brought his victims just before the hunt,’ Janey said. ‘He liked them to get a good eyeful of what was in store.’

  She closed the door behind them and Elliott studied the room. Apart from the window it seemed as elaborately anonymous as all the other bedrooms he’d seen in the East Wing.

  ‘You’d better tell me what you’re going to do in here, or I’m not helping you,’ he said. ‘I mean it. Tell me now.’

  Janey opened her hand, allowing light to spill be
tween her fingers. ‘Keep your voice down,’ she warned. ‘Do you see what makes this room so different?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘No?’

  ‘There’s just the usual furniture, and … oh.’

  Elliott saw it now. There were no portraits of Cullayn. Instead, behind him, a huge picture hung over the bed. The picture was not a painting but an intricately-embroidered tapestry. It depicted an ancient medieval battleground, and at the calm centre of that battleground was a knight. He sat on a white horse, holding a gleaming sword aloft in defiance of whole armies scattered like insects across the tapestry. It was a spell-binding scene. The knight was life-sized, and armed with mace and lance as well as sword. There was something magnificent about the way he was rearing up on his horse against seemingly impossible odds. Seeing the knight’s heroic stance in the crippled setting of the East Wing for some reason made Elliott stand up straighter.

  Janey glanced from the tapestry back to Elliott. ‘Artwork can have a power beyond the value Cullayn puts upon it, eh? I suspect he tolerates its presence because he fancies himself as the knight. He doesn’t realise he’s one of the maggot-soldiers on the plains below. But the reason we care about the picture is that Eve comes here. She stares at this picture all the time. I’ve followed her, seen her reaction. It makes her heart swirl with emotion.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Can’t you guess?’

  Elliott studied the tapestry closely. ‘Because Cullayn’s not in it?’

  ‘Yes. Partly. This is the only room where he is not present. I have checked them all to be sure. But also …’ Janey leaned forward. ‘Eve wants a knight to come and rescue her, Elliott,’ she whispered with sudden passion. ‘I’m sure of it. If only she knew it, she wants to be rid of Cullayn. She’s desperately lonely in the way only a child can be. The whole house is saturated with her loneliness. Surely you’ve felt that? But she’s got no way out. Cullayn’s kept her close, never offered her that choice. I think that if we give her half a chance Eve will join us.’