by Beverley Lee
‘I think you might have been reading between the lines too much, Olivia.’ Carver leaned forward, sliding his hands down his thighs. A muscle twitched in his jaw.
‘It was a professional opinion. The house was a risk. Did you want any chance of…what it was, returning?’ The wavering tone in her voice disappeared, replaced by steel. ‘The house was empty. There was no risk of anyone getting hurt. It was hardly a home; they were always away. And they were well insured. I checked.’
Carver shook his head. ‘I harbour much of what society would call strange in this house. But I have never kept an arsonist.’
The atmosphere in the room dropped a few degrees and Noah stopped breathing for a moment.
‘If you wish, I will turn myself over to the authorities.’ Olivia’s tone was level, measured; all of Carver’s training had clicked into place.
‘No, you damn well won’t!’ Ollie broke his silence. Behind his glasses, his eyes were wide, owl-like. His usual studious demeanour had been cracked open.
‘No one is suggesting anything so radical,’ said Noah, with a pointed glance at his friend. ‘Can I suggest we all take a break? It’s been a very trying time.’ He rose from his chair. ‘I want to check on Beth and Gabe.’
Carver raised an eyebrow and sighed. Noah knew letting Olivia and him battle it out was an accident waiting to happen. Neither of them would back down—it could all get ugly fast. So diffusing the situation might only be a quick fix, but at least it would give them time to cool down and to think.
Carver motioned to the door with his hand. ‘We’ll reconvene for supper this evening. All of us.’ It wasn’t a request.
Olivia stood, letting the cushion fall to the floor. Her chin tilted upwards as she fixed her gaze on him. ‘As you wish.’ She exited with Ollie close behind, leaving a chilly atmosphere in her wake.
Carver let out a deep breath. ‘That went about as badly as it could have done. I want to say this day can’t get any worse. But I fear fate is enjoying this floor show a little too much.’
***
Ollie Taverner knocked on the door separating him from Gabe.
Olivia had disappeared into the research room as soon as they had left the others. He knew better than to ask her if she needed help. She was out to prove a point. He knew she wouldn’t have set fire to the farmhouse without being certain there was no other choice, but the fact that she had actually done it shocked him to the core.
This evening was going to be uncomfortable and upsetting. He sighed and chewed the inside of his lower lip. If it ended with Olivia being asked to leave, he wasn’t sure what he would do. He loved living at The Manor, loved the work and what it stood for, and loved the people who lived here with him, as dysfunctional as they were. It was the first time in his life he had felt like he belonged and he didn’t want to think about leaving it all behind. But he had never been without his twin.
He knocked again. ‘Gabe?’
‘Go away.’
Ollie hesitated, his fist resting on the door. Gabe definitely didn’t seem in the mood for any kind of conversation. And who could blame him.
The door swung open in one sudden swoop. Ollie almost fell in.
‘Nothing you can say will change what she did. Nothing she says will make what she did right.’ Gabe stood in the doorway, his dark hair falling over his face. His eyes were red and swollen.
‘I don’t know why she did it, Gabe. But I know it wasn’t to hurt you, or Beth.’ Ollie tried not to stare at the tear trails on Gabe’s face. ‘But I’m not here to discuss what happened just now. Can I come in?’ Ollie glanced downstairs. The two men were talking, their serious voices drifting upwards.
Gabe shrugged and then stood back, his hand tight-fingered on the door handle. Ollie noticed the paperweight on the floor and the indent above it. Sunlight filtered through the window. The air was stuffy, slightly dusty. A pair of trainers with scuffed black toes peeked out from under the bed. Gabe’s clothes lay discarded, spilling out of a wicker laundry basket. A stack of books in a pile by the bed. It needed an Ella touch.
Ollie lowered himself carefully on the edge of the bed, as if it were a knife blade.
Gabe didn’t move from the door, nor did he relinquish his hold on its handle. They might as well have been complete strangers, not two boys who lived under the same roof.
‘I want you to know that I’m not going to tell Carver about where you were earlier. It wouldn’t help anyone, especially with how things are right now.’ The word ‘things’ took on a distasteful sound, like something nasty found at the bottom of a fridge.
‘To be honest, Ollie, I don’t care. I wish everyone would stop acting as if I need protecting. This is my past we’re talking about. Don’t I deserve to know everything I can about it? Wouldn’t that protect me more?’ Gabe’s voice rose a decibel.
He shifted uncomfortably on the bed. Gabe’s logic had a powerful ring, but it wasn’t long ago that he had stopped building Lego. Somewhere over this long, hot summer he had changed, hovering over the pothole-ridden trail of mid teendom. Ollie could still remember being that age. That was when he and Olivia had first arrived here, certain they were mature enough to handle whatever lay ahead. It had been a steep learning curve. But, Ollie reminded himself, he’d had his sister. The boy facing him, looking like a puppy left out in the rain, was in this by himself.
‘If you want to see inside the vault, I’ll take you. But if the boss man gets wind of this, we’ll both be looking for a new place to stay.’
Gabe’s shoulders dropped visibly and his mouth fell open.
Ollie forced a smile. If he had done the right thing, why did he feel like he had undermined everything this house stood for?
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Edward Carver stood in the hallway of The Manor, mentally picking up the pieces of the last few hours. Shouldn’t he have guessed at breakfast that things were far from settled? Some deep part of him had known life couldn’t continue as it was, as he had fought for. The Manor was a safe-house in more ways than one. The knowledge that events had transpired to cause a rift in the equilibrium gnawed at him like the teeth of a rat.
He watched as Noah went up the stairs to check on Beth, grateful for the other man’s friendship and diplomacy. They were an unlikely duo, a man of faith and a man who dug about in the underbelly of the world. He liked to think they were like weights on opposing ends of a scale. But there were some things even Noah didn’t know.
Carver patted his jacket pocket. Tension ran like a steel rod down his spine. He stopped three times to check no one was following, hearing only the creak of floorboards as others moved upstairs. He knew every groan of this old house. Moving quickly, he took the same path Gabe had only a few hours before. He opened the door leading to the cellar and cold air rushed up to meet him, cooling the sweat on his brow. The echo of his shoes on the stone steps seemed far too loud.
The door of the vault loomed as he flicked on the light. The switch pad welcomed him with its garish green glow, highlighting the veins on the back of his hands. He pulled the key card from his pocket and tapped it against the pad. An amber light flashed. He entered the numerical code swiftly. A row of digital hieroglyphics lit up, one by one, and inside the door, a heavy clunk signalled the entry system sluggishly churning to life. He glanced to the top of the stairs again, made his decision, and pushed open the door.
The interior was lit by a row of ultra violet lights at floor level and the same repeated at ceiling height. The parchments fluoresced under that kind of light and even tiny amounts of ink absorbed it and were legible. It was a cool blue glow backed by a low hum from the inbuilt generator. Shelving hung from the walls with one central safety box located in the middle of the back wall. The atmosphere inside the vault made the hairs stand up on the nape of his neck. Here were the ancient manuscripts too fragile to survive in modern air and temperatures, and artefacts from long lost civilisations; a fragment of a codex written in Maya hieroglyphic script; two stun
ningly preserved Egyptian papyrus scrolls; and others, remembered only by a passing paragraph in a dusty tome, but everything here was kept hidden to preserve it. Except for one thing.
Carver pressed the centre of the key card and a silver chip clicked into his hand. Unassuming in its power, it lay on his palm. Despite the chill, his hand was sweating. Carver picked it up by its edges and fed it into a tiny slot on the front of the safety box. Inside, a partial vacuum released and the metal door eased open. The air escaped against his wrist and a wave of nausea washed over him.
Part of him wondered why he was even down here. But his gut instinct needed to know it was still here.
He pushed the door back and reached inside. His hands shook as they drew the object out and placed it on an empty shelf. It was wrapped in a thin gauze of white muslin. He peeled off the covering, hating the way it clung to itself like blistered skin.
It was The Box.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Ella called them all for dinner at 7.30 on the dot.
She had arrived late afternoon and spent the few hours between blasting through the house and polishing invisible smears from every surface. Somehow, she had also managed to cobble together ingredients for a casserole, the smell of which wafted through the halls. Normally this would have had the magical effect of summoning people from inside whatever room they were hiding in. It was common for at least two of them to be found sitting on the stairs, waiting for the dinner announcement. It was an unwritten rule that no one went inside the dining room before Ella spoke. The house might be Carver’s, but she was the Queen of Anything Cuisine.
Tonight, however, was a much more sombre affair. She eyed Carver from behind the slightly misted glasses perched on her nose. Steam wafted from under the lid of the huge dish she was carrying. She placed it in the centre of the dining table and smoothed her hands down her apron.
‘I will leave you to it.’ Her normally cheery voice sounded clipped, nearly business-like, and Noah arched an eyebrow at his friend as they pulled their chairs up to the table. Ella exited with an audible tut in Carver’s direction.
He cleared his throat and shook out a napkin. ‘It seems I’ve managed to alienate Ella, too, and she hasn’t been home five minutes.’
Ollie, Gabe, and Olivia followed each other in, glancing backwards at Ella’s retreating form.
‘I told Ella we wouldn’t be requiring her services with dinner.’ Carver filled them in before anyone could ask any questions.
Noah picked up his water glass and took a sip. ‘Was that before or after she prepared dinner?’
‘Maybe you should say a blessing, just in case.’ Gabriel’s words would have been teasing on any other night.
Olivia seated herself opposite her mentor; she was obviously standing her ground. Ollie half nodded at Gabe behind Carver’s back, before taking the chair next to Noah.
‘I think that’s a very good idea, Gabe.’ Noah looked at them each in turn, and closed his eyes. ‘Let us be thankful for the gift of food and family. May each of us feel the grace of the Lord’s blessing. Amen.’
Now all eyes were on him.
‘What?’ He took a bread roll from the basket. ‘Indulge me. I felt we needed this today.’
The meal was delicious, or it should have been, but no one really tasted or enjoyed Ella’s efforts. They were all too preoccupied with the prospect of the after dinner discussion.
Gabe and Ollie gathered up the plates of half eaten food and took them into the kitchen since Ella had gone to her room.
Noah could hear their hallway conversation.
‘Let Liv tell her side of the story first, Gabe,’ said Ollie. ‘You can rant and rave afterwards if you want to.’
Gabe paused. ‘Something’s changed, Ollie, in this house. Can you feel it?’
Noah dabbed at an imaginary crumb with his napkin and tried to sense whatever it was that was causing Gabe concern, but apart from the rapidly dropping temperature of the air between Carver and Olivia, he couldn’t feel anything.
‘You’re just upset. Things will be back to normal tomorrow, wait and see.’ Ollie let Gabe go in front of him and they both took their seats.
Gabe didn’t look like he was convinced.
Olivia launched into her defence. ‘You said in some of your research notes that in similar cases to the Davenports, the entity returned to its base because that was where it had entered this dimension. Conclusively, if there were no base, it would be forced to seek other refuge.’ She paused, watching their faces for signs of understanding or rebuke, ‘Therefore, Beth and Gabe would be safer with the base destroyed, because the entity would no longer have a pathway to them.’
Noah glanced across to his friend, who was staring at a point on the table, deep in thought. Carver roused himself, clasping his hands in front of him as he spoke.
‘Similar cases, that’s the sticking point. We don’t know what we’re dealing with here, there are only a few documented events that are similar, and they didn’t involve a demon that manifested in smoke. For all we know, the b...’ he stopped suddenly, ‘the base was only a starting block. It may have as much need for that house as a butterfly needs from its cocoon. I wish you’d come to me, Olivia, so we could have discussed it before you decided to play with matches.’
‘I followed my instincts,’ she replied. ‘Just as you told us to.’
‘You undermined my authority and put the reputation of this house at risk. Did you not think of the consequences? What if you’d been caught?’ Carver clenched one hand into a fist that hovered over the table.
‘I was extremely careful.’ Her chin tilted upwards a fraction.
Noah intercepted. ‘Gabe, you’re extremely quiet. What are your thoughts?’
‘I told you what I thought earlier and that hasn’t changed.’ He was strangely subdued and Noah grimaced. He preferred Gabe raging, at least then he was showing true emotion.
An awkward silence filled the room. In one short day, they all seemed to have drifted apart. Noah wondered if the repercussions would still be felt years from now.
‘What about both Beth and Liv seeing Gabe’s father?’ said Ollie.
‘My father was the one returning to his base.’ Gabe raised his head and looked across at Olivia. ‘It was the last place we were all together. Maybe he never moved on and the trauma of losing the house was enough to tap through to Beth. Maybe you saw him because she opened up a pathway, a tear in the membrane that separates this world from any other.’
Carver nodded. He looked impressed. ‘That’s a distinct possibility. Part of me wants to go back and see if he appears again, but I’m not sure Beth would be up to it.’
‘Then take me.’ Gabe’s voice was strong, even. It was more of a demand than a suggestion.
‘Okay, I think we’ve done as much as we can tonight. Everybody is tired and frazzled.’ Carver slid his chair back and rose to his feet. ‘Noah, could you stay for a few minutes? I need to talk to you alone.’
Gabe lingered in the doorway.
‘We’ll discuss this more tomorrow,’ said Carver. His tone declared that it was not up for negotiation.
The curator waited until Gabe’s footsteps disappeared upstairs. He stood with his back against the door as if his presence was enough to block anyone or anything outside, then ran his fingers through his neatly groomed hair.
‘Noah, I haven’t been completely honest with you about everything. I want to ask you to come downstairs with me, to the vault.’
***
The two men stood in silence, looking down at the weathered surface of the box.
‘You told me you had burnt it.’ Noah’s fingers played with the small cross, which he wore under his collar.
‘I thought it best everyone assumed it was gone. But I couldn’t destroy something I didn’t fully understand. This was a husk for whatever came from it. I wanted to know why and how it had got here. I don’t think it’s dangerous in itself.’
‘But you kept it hidd
en behind several layers of cold, hard steel, and in a locked container?’
‘Better to be safe than sorry. Plus, I didn’t want anyone finding it. Whatever was in here wanted Gabe. I wasn’t going to risk him coming across it and possibly setting another disaster in motion.’
Noah’s lips were dry. He ran his tongue over them and immediately wiped the back of his hand over his mouth. The air in here tasted like a newly opened grave. Carver wasn’t making any sense. On one hand, he didn’t think the vessel for the entity posed a threat, and on the other, he feared that letting Gabe know about it would unleash some other mayhem. An old fear uncurled itself in his belly.
‘I want you to take it.’ One of the ultra violet lights flickered, casting dark shadows under the older man’s eyes. Noah’s heart dropped into his stomach. ‘I don’t think it’s safe here anymore, not with everything that’s gone down today. You saved Gabe and Beth by using the tools of your faith. The entity feared your faith. I don’t want it under the same roof as Beth and Gabe.’
‘Why now?’ Noah had to clench his teeth together to stop the fear in his throat spiralling out.
‘Because Gabriel has come of age. And I think that’s what it’s been waiting for.’
Chapter Thirty
The twilight frightened Beth Davenport.
Every evening, she sat by her window hoping for clouds in the night sky. The stars reminded her of some old memory, something that lingered on the edge of her consciousness, calling her name in the dark. But this was the time when swallows darted in daredevil dives, gathering night midges for a hungry brood. The chicks squabbled under the eaves, their voices shrill as a parent swooped in with dinner. Tonight was just like any other. She had forgotten her little jaunt earlier, had forgotten hearing the baby cry, had forgotten seeing the ghost of her long-dead husband. Which was a blessing. She stared out onto the lawn, brushing the knots from her white hair with a boar bristle brush Stu had given her the Christmas before Gabriel was born.