A Case of Grave Danger

by Sophie Cleverly

  ‘It didn’t come from upstairs,’ Thomas insisted. ‘It came from out there.’ He pointed to the front window.

  ‘Probably only the rain, my dear,’ said Mother. ‘Come along now, Thomas, it’s past your bedtime.’ She stood up and shepherded my little brother out of the room, despite his protests.

  Father simply shrugged and went back to reading his newspaper.

  But I hadn’t looked away from the window. Because I had seen something that the others had not.

  A flash of white eyes in the darkness, and a shadow disappearing into the night.

  couldn’t sleep that night, though goodness knows I tried. My down quilt felt hot and heavy, and no matter which way I turned I couldn’t get comfortable. I knew, though, that wasn’t the real reason I couldn’t sleep. It was because of the face I’d seen at the window.

  The grandfather clock downstairs was chiming an hour past my bedtime, but my eyes hadn’t closed. I couldn’t stop thinking about what I’d seen. Someone had been out there, looking in on us. What if they had been a grave robber or a vandal? I wouldn’t forgive myself if something happened.

  Why I hadn’t told my father about what I’d seen, I don’t know. Perhaps I thought he wouldn’t listen, given how preoccupied he seemed at the moment. But I hadn’t said a word, and now if anything did happen, I’d be responsible.

  And it was after that thought that I heard a noise downstairs.

  Bones, who had been sleeping on my bed (which, needless to say, he was not supposed to do), woke up and began growling softly. He hopped down, padded over to the door and started to paw at the floorboards.

  I had to go and look.

  It was a ridiculous idea, and I tried to talk myself out of it. What could I possibly do if I confronted a dangerous villain? Nothing but call for help, and by then it could be too late. If they ran, I could chase them, I supposed, but it was night-time and the autumn sky was black as ink.

  I wasn’t scared of being in a graveyard – how could I be, when I had been raised here? In the daylight, when the sun was shining and the poppies and daisies would gently blow in the breeze, it was beautiful. At night, things where different. The moon wouldn’t be enough light to see by, and a candle would be extinguished by the rain. I was fairly certain I had nothing to fear from the dead, but the living were another matter altogether.

  More noises came to my ears: shuffling and banging.

  Bones’s tail went upright like an exclamation mark. His eyes met mine, and I nodded at him. I felt my courage building, knowing that he was by my side. He could probably give anyone he didn’t like the look of a good bite.

  I found myself throwing off the covers and climbing out of bed. I pulled open the door as quietly as I could and tiptoed down the landing. I could hear Mother snoring gently and the ever-present rain on the rooftops.

  I slipped silently down the stairs, Bones padding ahead of me – his footsteps remarkably quiet for a large dog. He went straight for the funeral parlour, and started barking. In trepidation, I followed. I felt something was wrong immediately, but it took a few moments for me to realise what it was.

  I peered around the dark room, at outlines in the gloom of shelves and coffins and urns. I stepped further inside, and I could see the edge of the coffin on the dais, the sharp angles of the cheap wood, and my eyes swept past it to the tiled floor.

  And then I looked again.

  The coffin was empty.

  Only hours ago, the blond boy had been lying in it. It was the same coffin, that much was certain. It still smelled faintly of apples.

  Thoughts raced through my head.

  It’s a grave robber. Or a murderer has come back to steal the body. Or … I gulped, thinking of Frankenstein’s creation in the novel as it shuddered to life.

  Bones wobbled around the room, sniffing everything. I tried to contain my panic, told myself I should just go back to bed. But in a flash, Bones was racing out of the door, heading for the back of the house.

  I didn’t know why, but I felt I had to follow. It took all my strength to put one foot in front of the other, but I did it. I felt a cold breeze on my skin, and heard the sound of falling rain grow louder.

  Now Bones batted at the back door, whining. It was open a crack. Someone had come inside.

  Or gone out.

  After a deep breath, I pulled the door back a little and peered through. I could see nothing but rain. A lantern, I thought. That was what I needed. Father often kept one by the back door.

  I snuck into the tiny cloakroom by the porch and pulled out a black overcoat that was a little too big for me, buttoning it on over my nightgown. Soft leather boots that were now old and battered went on over my feet – they felt odd without any stockings.

  The glass lantern was on a hook next to the door, almost too high for me to reach, but I managed it on tiptoes. There was a white candle stub inside, so I found a box of matches and lit it. Then I took a deep breath. It was time for a very unwise decision.

  I stepped outside.

  The rain fell around me in waves, immediately sticking strands of my hair to my forehead. Gooseflesh rose on my legs in seconds as the wind bit into them. The light from the lantern illuminated only a mere few feet in front of my eyes. Bones quivered in the cold, before striding ahead into the dark.

  There were fresh footprints in the mud, leading away from the house. Human footprints. Footprints that were just a little larger than mine.

  Definitely an unwise decision.

  As I went through our back gate, the footprints disappeared as the grass of the cemetery took over.

  I began to walk through the graves. I knew them well. I passed John Beckington and steadied myself on the headstone. I passed Annie Arkwright and Mr and Mrs Jones and Jeremiah Heap. I stopped for breath by the O’Neill family crypt and leaned against the cold wall. The vast tomb gave a little shelter, at least.

  If I listened hard enough, I could hear their whispers.

  Keep going.

  You’re close.

  They sensed something that I could not. So far I had seen nothing but the faint grey shadows of the ghosts, which shifted and changed like wisps of fog. I had heard no movement in the grass or trees, no sounds of footsteps or heavy breathing. But it was so dark and so loud out there that I began to wonder if I wasn’t being totally foolish. Perhaps I had just imagined the footprints, the way they looked. Perhaps they had belonged to Thomas from earlier in the day, and I just hadn’t noticed them before.

  The only way I would know if someone was there was if they jumped out at me, and that wasn’t an idea I relished. Bones was still moving forward, as if he had caught a scent.

  I shivered. I was sure to catch a chill in this weather. ‘Who’s there?’ I whispered, blinking through the rain at the iron clouds and the few stars that dappled the empty space between. I wondered if I might hear a ghostly answer, but whatever I sensed from the dead, it was never an answer to my burning questions.

  It was time to move on – I needed to keep going. I could see Bones running on ahead, investigating the graves as he passed. I decided I would loop back on myself once I got to the far hedgerow (I longed for my bed already), but I soon realised I was getting nearer to the spot where the blond boy was to be buried.

  Bones stopped at the graveside, where the freshly dug hole gaped like the mouth of Hell. Then I really could hear something. A moaning sound that seemed as though it were coming from the grave.

  I was near paralysed with fear. Bones hung close to my leg, and I felt his skin rumbling as he growled.

  Slowly, I dangled the lantern and peered in.

  The grave was empty. Nothing but a muddy hole, rapidly filling with rainwater.

  The sound reached my ears this time. It was definitely someone moaning. I bit my lip so hard that I could taste blood.

  ‘H-hello?’ I called into the night. ‘Is someone there?’ I blinked in the rain, in the flickering glow of the candlelight.

  Something moved behind one
of the gravestones. A shadow, shuffling, ungainly.

  Watch out, one of the ghostly voices whispered on the breeze.

  I gasped, and Bones barked into the wind. The shadow moved nearer, pushing through the grass. I stayed frozen, held out the lantern like a shield. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to see what was approaching, but I had no choice.

  A figure lurched into the light, and I caught a strangled breath in my throat.

  There, standing before me, was the blond boy. The boy who was supposed to be dead.

  I screamed.

  ou’re ALIVE!’ I gasped.

  Alive, the deathly voices around me echoed in whispers. Not one of us. This would be the talk of the graveyard now.

  The blond boy was dressed in funeral finery, the best that could be put together for a pauper from the tailor’s cast-offs, but even so – his face was as pale as the moon above us, a sliver of it peeking through the dark clouds. He was soaked with rain, dishevelled and muddy, his hair sticking up at strange angles. His skin was ashen, his eyes sunken and hollow, blinking in the light.

  I finally caught my breath again. ‘Are you all right?’

  The boy stumbled towards me, and I jerked backwards. Bones barked again, a warning.

  The boy opened his mouth, as if not quite sure how it worked. He rubbed a hand against the back of his head. ‘Where … am I?’ he asked, the words coming slowly like they were rising up through treacle.

  I shushed Bones and held on to his collar. ‘You’re in the graveyard,’ I said. ‘Um, well, Seven Gates Cemetery, to be precise.’ I realised that I was going to have to step a little nearer, but my legs were fighting against me. I ignored them and moved closer to the boy so he could hear me.

  ‘Are you a ghost? Am I … dead?’ the blond boy asked, his dark eyes wide with terror.

  I paused, a little taken aback by his humanity. Perhaps he wasn’t some terrifying creature of the night after all.

  ‘I’m certainly not a ghost!’ I said. ‘Ghosts are more …’ I looked down at myself. ‘See-through. And you certainly don’t look dead,’ I admitted. ‘In fact, you seem rather upright.’

  The boy suddenly stumbled sideways, falling into the mud beside the grave. Bones pulled away from me and began to lick his face.

  ‘Violet! Violet! Are you there?’

  It was Father! I had never been so thankful in my entire life. ‘Father! Come quick, please!’

  He dashed through the darkness towards me, his hand shielding his eyes. ‘What on earth …’ he shouted as the water drummed on the stones around us. Bones pressed a wet nose against his trousers. My father was wearing nightclothes under an overcoat, like myself.

  I watched as Father slowly took in the sight before him – the pouring rain, his daughter looking like a drowned rat, and the blond boy slumped against a stone cross, chest heaving with the breath of life.

  ‘Oh my …’ Father said, as though hardly able to believe his own eyes. He looked at me desperately. ‘What’s going on here?’

  ‘I don’t know!’ I said breathlessly. ‘I heard a noise, so I went downstairs, and I found his coffin empty! The door was open, and there were footprints …’

  Father pulled me into his arms. There was a brief moment of warmth and shelter, before he released me. ‘You should have fetched me immediately! There could have been grave robbers about!’ His words were cut short as he looked at the boy again. I didn’t know how Father could see a thing – his spectacles were steamed up and splattered with rain. ‘How could this have happened?’ His face had gone as pale as the boy’s.

  The boy shook his head as if trying to regain his senses, and shivered in the cold. He looked up at us, and finally spoke again. ‘W-what’s … happened to me?’

  * * *

  The blond boy was dead. He had been dead. Hadn’t he? He’d been sent to us to be buried – I’d seen it with my own two eyes. And yet, whatever he had been, he was very much alive now and firmly back in the land of the living.

  Father held a shaking hand out to the boy. The boy took it, but it took several attempts to lift him up – his weakened legs kept buckling beneath him. When he was finally standing, he seemed to be capable of staying up. I wanted to take his hand so badly, to give him comfort in any way that I could, but Mother’s voice in the back of my head whispered that it would be improper.

  He moaned again, and tried to bat the light away.

  ‘He’s delirious,’ Father said.

  I gulped. ‘It’s all right,’ I said to the boy, trying my best to soothe his quick breaths. ‘Please, stay calm. We need to get you inside. Can you walk?’

  ‘I think so,’ he said, but his voice was barely a whisper, and I wasn’t sure whether I’d truly heard or only seen his lips move.

  Father tentatively put his hands on the boy’s shoulders. ‘I’ll run for Doctor Lane. Violet will help you back to the house, if you can make it.’

  The boy nodded again, silently, and I couldn’t help but shudder. I knew he was alive, but at the same time still felt as though he were a dead man walking. Like Frankenstein’s monster.

  In the lamplight, I could see that he was covered with mud and damp grass. Bones gently licked him.

  Then Father was running, and Bones shot away after him with a sudden burst of greyhound speed. They darted through the headstones like minnow through a stream – they knew them as well as I did.

  The blond boy staggered again, and I ducked underneath his arm to try to bear him up. To heck with improper, I thought. He needs me. And I couldn’t keep calling him ‘the blond boy’. ‘What’s your name, master?’ I asked.

  ‘Oliver,’ he replied, and then he began coughing violently.

  When the coughing subsided, I spoke again. ‘Can you walk? We’ll need to get you back to the house. You’ll catch your de—’ I stopped myself. ‘Sorry.’

  He didn’t seem to notice my faux pas. He began to stumble forward, and together we walked back through the rain-washed graveyard, the mud and sodden grass threatening to pull our shoes from our feet. I tried to steer him around the graves, but at one point he tripped on Nathaniel Partridge’s broken headstone and nearly brought us both down.

  It seemed like it took an age, the two of us walking in silence under the black sky. The ghosts’ voices were mere tingling whispers now – I fancied they were talking amongst themselves, not to me, about the evening’s excitement. The barrier between living and dead was a hard one to cross, like shouting underwater.

  As the clouds began to melt away, I glimpsed stars beginning to twinkle. ‘Not long now,’ I kept saying. ‘Nearly there.’ Eventually it was true, and we were outside the back door.

  It was wide open – Father must have run through the house.

  The boy – Oliver – stopped and leaned against the wall, his breathing still rapid. One of his hands clutched his stomach, the other his head. I quickly reached inside the door and stretched to hang up the lantern on the hook, so that I had both hands free.

  ‘Please … Master Oliver,’ I said. ‘You’ve got to get inside.’

  He looked at me, and I was suddenly struck by his eyes, which were – for all their sunkenness – a deep, dark brown like a warm cup of cocoa. So different from my own, which were storm grey.

  ‘I …’ he paused. ‘I don’t want to tread mud inside your house, miss.’

  And then he fainted.

  hen Oliver’s eyes finally blinked back open, he looked rather surprised to see myself, my father, my mother (who had been awoken by all the commotion), Doctor Lane and Bones the dog all staring down at him. He tried to speak, but it rapidly dissolved into coughing.

  ‘Don’t talk for a little while, son,’ said the doctor, his voice deep and booming. ‘Your throat is raw.’

  Oliver nodded, or at least attempted a nod, but it was clearly rather difficult as he was lying down.

  Doctor Lane leaned closer and held a light up to the boy’s eyes. ‘Do you remember what happened to you?’

  A short, sharp sha
ke of the head.

  ‘But you remember who you are?’

  ‘My name’s Oliver,’ came the whispered reply, and that was all he could say.

  We’d got him to the nearest bed, which happened to be mine since Thomas was still fast asleep. Needless to say, my cream quilt was no longer looking creamy, and was instead blemished with mud and grass. Bones had decided to curl up on the end of the bedspread, contributing to the mess.

  I’d taken a chair next to the bed. Oliver was staring up at me. His lips were dry and cracked as he mouthed something.

  ‘Water!’ I said. ‘He needs water!’

  I looked at Mother, who was tightly gripping a bottle of smelling salts in a worried fashion. ‘Oh, yes,’ she replied. ‘I’ll get some.’ She hurried out of the room.

  Doctor Lane yawned and began to fold up his stethoscope. ‘Will you be able to look after this young man until tomorrow? He might be a little in shock, but the rest of him, miraculously, seems to be in order. His heartbeat is strong and his breathing is returning to normal.’

  ‘Hmm, all right,’ Father said. He was still soaked through and muddy, as was I. ‘He can rest here,’ he said wearily. ‘Let me get your coat.’

  Doctor Lane gathered up his leather bag and headed out of the door, followed by Father. Bones stayed at the boy’s feet. He liked him, I could tell.

  I reached out and gently took Oliver’s hand. It was freezing. He winced a little, but remained silent. I thought he would shut his eyes, yet they stayed wide open, and he appeared to be focusing on the light of the lamp.

  Lying there so pale, with his eyes unblinking, he looked almost like the corpse we’d believed him to be to start with. Yet his chest rose and fell, and a little colour was slowly returning to his complexion.

  I knew well that death was the end of everyone’s story. Or at least it should be. But this boy – Oliver – he was somehow still here. His story hadn’t ended. This wasn’t the faint, whispery epilogue from the ghosts that sometimes tickled the edge of my hearing. He was real, and here, and alive. If life were a book, he had been given a sequel. Was it a misunderstanding or a miracle?