by Leo Hunt
“Of course.”
“Look, they can’t know I talked to you. Can’t know anyone said anything. But I reckon you want to look up near the Devil’s Footsteps. I know all the town ghosts, and there’s been chat about stuff happening up there. If someone’s got hold of your body, that’s probably where it is.”
“Devil’s Footsteps?”
“Stone circle, mate. All the ghosts know it. It’s a passing place, you know?”
“Where is it?” I ask.
“Up by school. There’s a track behind the rugby fields, goes into the woods. Follow that. You’ll know it when you see it.”
“Thanks,” I say.
“Don’t worry,” Ryan says, “just doing what we can. Dunbarrow boys stick together.”
He grins and flies away, back toward Vibe. I make my way up to the school.
Dunbarrow High is, unsurprisingly, deserted. There’s only a single white van left in the parking lot. I drift farther down toward ground level. It’s too dark to see anything now that I’m beyond the influence of the street lamps. I float across the rugby field, listening to the trees rustle, trying to see whatever path Ryan was talking about. I’ve never heard anything about the ominously named Devil’s Footsteps, and I’m finding it hard to believe there’s any occult hot spot so close to the high school.
Just as I’m about to give up, I see someone wearing a black hooded jacket. I dart into the pine trees and hang in the air just underneath the dripping dark branches. It’s me — my body. It comes closer, making squishing noises as it walks across the damp field. It’s carrying a headless rabbit in its left hand, the brown corpse swinging by the hind legs. As my body passes the tree I’m hidden in, it pauses and looks around, as if it can sense something in the wind. My face is white beneath the hood of the raincoat, my mouth twisted into an expression of joy. If I still had any breath, I’d be holding it. After a moment my body turns and moves on, striding into the darkness, and I glide along in pursuit.
We make our way over the rugby field and then head up through the woods, uphill for quite a distance, then down a shallow slope, and we come suddenly to what must be the Devil’s Footsteps. They’re set in a hollow completely overshadowed by enormous oak trees. The hollow is carpeted by soft moss, as well as by tufts of those needle-thin reeds that grow in wet earth. There are three stones, one taller than a man, the other two more rounded, flatter, and maybe table height. I could get dramatic and compare them to teeth, but they’re really just craggy masses of rock, like someone started sculpting something and then just couldn’t be bothered and left them out here. The setting is appropriately sinister.
My body walks to the center of the stone circle and then kneels and starts to claw at the ground with its hands. I watch, hidden up in the tree line, as it digs, ignoring the wind and rain.
I get back to Elza’s house at midnight. Ham is laid out at her feet, breathing softly. She’s got two pages of my dad’s notes on the sofa in front of her and is furiously scribbling at something with a permanent marker.
“Knock, knock.”
“Did you find yourself?”
“I did, actually. I — it, rather — was up behind school. Some place called the Devil’s Footsteps?”
“Oh. The sacrifice grounds. Well that’s . . . unpleasant. It must be preparing something for Halloween.”
“It dug a hole for hours, stopped just before midnight. I followed it back to my house.”
“And you couldn’t get in because of the magical barrier.”
“Right. It went in and that was it. It’s still there.”
“So we’ve got lots of problems. No sigil, no Book, you’ve got no body. They’ve got your mum shut up in the house. We’ve only got five full days until Halloween, and I still have no idea what your dad’s sheets of numbers are all about.”
“Elza, I want to know my mum’s OK. I haven’t seen her since Friday. Anything could’ve happened to her. You know how she’s been. I want to see her.”
“All right.” Elza pinches at the bridge of her nose. “Oh, my head is pounding. I was going to suggest the same thing. If the Host doesn’t want you in your house, then that seems like an excellent reason to get inside.”
“What, you want to go now?”
“No, not now. We need to plan this properly. We can’t just go running off without a clue, like we did to Holiday’s place. We’ll work this out and go tomorrow. Rescuing your mum seems like a good start.”
“OK, but how will that help us with the rest of it?”
“Well . . . I don’t know. But they clearly want her alive for something. I think if we get your mum out of there, they’ll come after us. Your body, too. And we’ll . . . we’ll have to improvise.”
“OK,” I say. “I mean, I don’t have a better plan.”
“So this magic circle,” Elza says. “Could I cross it? Does it stop spirits only?”
“I don’t think the magic circle stops living people. I saw the postman go in.”
“Maybe they were letting him through.”
“Yeah,” I say, “maybe. I saw birds get through, too.”
“Hmm. I’ve got an idea.”
“Really?”
“Have you tried possessing anything yourself?”
“It never crossed my mind.”
“Probably for the best. It’s a bad habit to get into. Well, listen, I’m not going in there alone. We know they can’t kill you. You’re already a ghost. I’m not sure how much they could even do to you. But I’m vulnerable. I don’t think the wyrdstone will help me if your body gets hold of me.”
“So I have to come, too. But I can’t cross the —”
“Yes. But like I said, I’ve got an idea. You know about the siege of Troy, right? The Greeks had a wooden horse with soldiers inside. We don’t have a wooden horse, but we do have something I think you’ll be able to use to cross the barrier inside.”
“Well, what is it?”
The fire spits, and a lump of flaming coal rolls out of the grate and hits the fire screen. Ham snaps out of his sleep, leaps upright, and whines. He turns to Elza and me and looks at us with wide affronted eyes.
Am Ham. Am Luke. Walk fields with girl. Fields smell good. Am brave. Am good. Big brave Ham. Good boy. Love girl. Am in rain. No good. Trees shouting in rain. Mud under. Feet wet. Am brave. Girl walk with Ham. Find Mum. Go to house. Bad house.
Walk walk. Head wet. Girl talk. Talk talk talk. High voice. Girl hair wet. Girl smell very good. Walk walk walk. See house. Bad house. Ham afraid. Ham brave. House big and bad. Was good house. Now Ham afraid. House full of unpeople. Unpeople bad, no smell. Ham afraid. Ham brave. Must find Mum. Must be brave. House full of unLuke too. Worst of all. Smell like Luke. Is not Luke.
Sneak sneak. Ham sneak. House smell wrong. Am brave. Will not run. Luke brave. Hedge have blood under. Fresh blood. Unbeasts hung from trees. Unbeasts talking. Say go away go away go away. Ham not run. Must cross blood. Go to bad house. Am Ham. Am Luke.
Girl talk, push at Ham. Do not want to go. Ham afraid. Unbeasts everywhere. Unpeople too. Very bad. House big and dark and bad.
Girl hit Ham on bott. Hit bott very hard. Not happy. Want to shout. Am Luke. Am Luke. Am crawl. Girl follow. Am brave. Unbeasts nailed to trees. Unbeasts shout.
Need to find Mum. Am Luke. Am Ham. Am brave. Am bravest. Crawl across blood. Bad smell. Am bravest. Cross lawn. Girl hide in shed.
Am not Ham. Am Luke Luke am Luke and finally —
— finally let go of Ham’s body and whistle up out of his nose, like steam from a kettle. Elza was right. It worked, we’re inside the circle. The dull-eyed heads of the carrion sentries turn to watch me as I drift over the back lawn, which was always my favorite place in our house, wide and green and gently curving down to a low stone wall, with churned-up sheep fields just beyond. Ham is whimpering behind me. I hope he’s not going to be a liability. Using him to cross the barrier around my house was a stroke of genius, but I’m worried that he’ll alert the ghosts. I’v
e been keeping watch over my house since the early morning, hovering behind our neighbor’s chimney stack. My body went out into the moors this morning and hasn’t come back, but that doesn’t mean it’s not going to, and I’m certain the Shepherd will have other members of the Host guarding the house.
“Go and find Elza!” I hiss. I think about possessing him again and driving him over to the garden shed to wait, but I’d rather not. Holding myself inside Ham’s mind is the most confusing thing I’ve ever done, worse than any drunken haze or dream. It’s like being trapped in a maze of mirrors while an idiot shouts into your ears. Every piece of dirt that made up the fields between Towen Crescent and here smelled indescribable; it was like an orchestra of sound and light playing in my snout. I was losing track of who I was. Without Elza spurring Ham on, I couldn’t even have made him cross the boundary.
I move across the garden and melt through the wall of the kitchen. I can hear the television talking in the living room. I move into the hall and peek my head around the door frame. The Judge is sitting on the sofa, red Docs resting on the coffee table. He’s watching a rugby game, obviously neglecting guard duty. I wonder what the rest of the Host are doing. I decide on the most direct approach possible and drift directly up through the ceiling into Mum’s bedroom.
My head breaks through the floor, then my shoulders, pushing up into the room. It’s dark in here. The window is covered by some thick black bedsheets, not her usual orange-and-green curtains. Only a thin seam of daylight is getting in around the edges.
Mum herself is floating about a foot above the bed, suspended by an unseen force. The enormous star rune is still painted above her bed, with eight other smaller marks now ringed around it. I move closer to the bed. Her face is flat and calm; it doesn’t look like she’s in pain. Her arms are folded over her chest, and I see that she’s clasping a small green-bound book. So that’s where they’re keeping the Book of Eight. I don’t know how we’re going to get Mum out of here. I didn’t plan for her to be levitating. I stay by her bedside, listening to her breathe, knowing that even if she woke up, she wouldn’t be able to see me. I can’t even touch her. If only I hadn’t signed Berkley’s contract . . .
I can’t be in this room. I dart through the wall into my room, which has been ransacked, clothes and bedding exploding everywhere. Something has torn at my wallpaper like an animal. Checking every room in the house, I find no other spirits and return to the garden shed, where Elza and Ham are cowering.
“What’s going on?” Elza asks.
“The Judge is in the living room, but he’s watching TV. You can get by. The rest of them aren’t here, so far as I can see. They must be at the Footsteps or something.”
“Or that’s what they want us to think.”
“Well, what can we do? OK, so you know where Mum’s bedroom is. Things have . . . gotten strange in there.”
“Are you sure about this?” she asks.
“The Book of Eight is up there as well. We need the Book.”
Elza breaks cover and runs across the back lawn, combat boots squelching in the wet grass. Ham remains in the shed, cowering under a tool bench. I decide that he’s been demoted to omega pack member due to persistent cowardice. I catch Elza up as she reaches the back door. Covering her fist with a rag from the shed, Elza smashes a pane of glass and reaches in to undo the latch.
“The key is under the flowerpot!” I hiss.
“Sorry. I’ve just always wanted to do that.”
“It was noisy! There’s a ghost in there, remember?”
Elza moves into the kitchen. Fragments of glass crunch beneath her feet. She takes a knife from the magnetic strip behind the stove.
“I don’t know if that’ll help you.”
“Never can tell. Oh, wow, is this a Svensberg limited edition?”
“Mum’s room is directly above us.”
“She has good taste in knives.”
“Elza —”
“Sorry. I get irrelevant when I’m scared.”
Her knuckles are very white as they grip the handle of the blade. The television switches to an advertisement, and I motion frantically at her to hide. She ducks into the pantry, breathing hard. The Judge picks up the remote and skips to the next part of the game. I move through the wall into the living room, and watch the back of his gray stubbly head until I’m sure he’s completely immersed. I flit back to the closet.
“If you see my body, are you going to stab me?” I whisper.
“Not if I don’t have to.”
“I’d just rather you didn’t stab me. I need that body in good condition.”
Elza moves across the front hall, the riskiest area, where the Judge could easily see her. She’s quiet and light on her toes when she wants to be, reminding me of a large black cat. She flattens against the coat closet by the door, waiting for my signal before climbing the stairs. The crowd noise on the television sounds like ocean surf. The Judge shifts his boots, so now the left foot rests on top of the right foot. I’m watching for any sign that he might be about to get up. After another minute I decide it’s safe. Elza climbs the stairs and edges across the landing, toward Mum’s room. Elza softly moves the door open, knife poised to strike, and then recoils from the dark doorway.
“Is she . . . ?”
“Yeah. Floating.”
The room feels even worse the second time I see it, more like a tomb than a bedroom.
“I’ve never seen anything like that.” Elza sounds both scared and fascinated.
“We need to get her out of here,” I say.
Elza closes the bedroom door behind her. The noise of the Judge’s rugby game fades away. It’s even darker now. I can just make out Elza’s face. I want my mum out of this house, away from the ghosts, somewhere safe, and I can’t ever touch her. I need Elza to understand this.
“I don’t know how to do that,” she says.
“We have to get her out of here! She’s my mum! I’ve left her like this for days! We have to do something.”
“We are doing something,” Elza says. “We need the Book and the sigil back. Luke . . . I get what it’s like. If that was my mum, I don’t know what I’d do. But we need to focus. We need to work out how to read the Book and banish the Host forever. That’s what’ll save her. You want to take her to the hospital? What are they going to do for her? She’ll be no safer than here.”
“You don’t know that! Elza, don’t talk like that!”
“Luke, your mum is levitating. How am I supposed to get her out of the house? Tie a rope around her ankle? Pull her down the road like a kite?”
I don’t say anything. I hate this. It feels like failing. Whatever the Host is doing to her, it’s too far gone for the county hospital to be of any use. I don’t want to leave her here, but I don’t know that we’ve got a choice.
“Get the Book, then,” I say.
Elza takes a deep breath.
“I’m a bit afraid to touch her. What if she wakes up?”
“And does what?”
“And strangles me or something? I don’t want to stab her.”
“We don’t have a choice, remember?”
Gripping the carving knife, Elza walks softly across the dark bedroom. I glide alongside her, keeping a close eye on Mum. I think Mum looks more peaceful than evil, but something about the absolute stillness of her face is frightening. I never imagined I could be afraid of her. She’s not even angry if I get into trouble at school or forget to walk Ham or anything like that; she just flaps a hand and says honestly like it’s just typical of me, what she expected. I don’t know if I’ve ever heard her raise her voice. But here, now, as Elza’s hands move closer and closer to Mum’s body, closer to the Book, it’s possible to love her and be afraid of her. It’s possible to wonder what her closed eyes are seeing. What you’d see in them if she woke.
Elza grasps the Book of Eight and slowly starts to pull it from Mum’s arms.
Mum makes a small sigh.
Elza freezes.
“She won’t hurt you,” I say.
“Easy for you to say, Man Without Body.”
“I have a body. It might be coming back right now. We need to get out of here.”
Elza grits her teeth and slides the Book of Eight free. Mum’s arms settle into their new position, the Book no longer held against her chest.
Elza lets out the breath she was holding and walks as fast as she can out of there, closing the door behind her. I blink through the bedroom wall just in time to hear her squeak and muffle a scream.
The Heretic is standing on the landing, wreathed in fire. His jaw hangs open, and oily smoke boils from his nostrils and eye sockets. He reaches a fleshless hand out to me, grasping at the air.
“Pater noster, qui es in caelis, sanctificetur nomen tuum!”
“What is that?” hisses Elza.
“That’s the Heretic. He’s harmless. Doesn’t even know who he is — be quiet!” I say to the thing.
“Is he trying to warn them?” Elza asks.
“He doesn’t have enough brain left to warn anyone.”
“Adveniat regnum tuum!”
“Shut up!”
“Fiat voluntas tua, sicut in caelo et in terra!”
“He’s going to warn them whether he means it or not!” Elza whispers frantically.
“Please shut up! Heretic!”
“Panem nostrum quotidianum da nobis hodie, et dimitte nobis —”
“Elza, go into the bathroom. Do it now.”
“— debita nostra sicut et nos dimittimus debitoribus nostris!”
“What?” she asks.
“Et ne nos inducas in tentationem, sed libera nos a malo!”
“Bathroom. Open the window, go out onto the garage roof. You can drop from there to the back garden. I’ll deal with the Judge. He can’t hurt me. Go.”
“Pater noster, qui es in caelis, sanctificetur nomen tuum!”
Elza nods and slips into the bathroom, closing the door behind her. The Judge pounds up the stairs, potato face creased with annoyance.
“What are you yelling about? Bloody fuss, never a mome — Luke!”
“Judge.”