First published by Lodestone Books, 2015
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Text copyright: Mary Victoria Johnson 2014
ISBN: 978 1 78279 918 4
Library of Congress Control Number: 2015947760
All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical articles or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publishers.
The rights of Mary Victoria Johnson as author have been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
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To Annabel
Shadows, nightmares,
I can keep them all at bay.
So come, little ones, come and play with me.
The day is long, yet the nights are longer.
Danger lurks at every corner of your mind.
So come, little ones, come and stay with me.
If there is no sunshine, you will not be afraid of the dark.
One lifetime is just about enough.
So come and dream awhile.
Just be aware, little ones, be very aware, the true terror is hidden
where you cannot see.
Fairy tales. Happily ever after.
I will make sure they stay away.
Part One
1
“I’m going to hide upstairs!”
“You mustn’t, Penny! He’ll skin you alive for simply saying the words!”
“I’m only fooling with you. Come on, I know a fantastic spot outside by the old cedar. They’ll never ever find us there!”
I giggled at the grumpy expression on Evelyn’s face. She could be such a worrywart! I could understand why she wasn’t showing any enthusiasm, since hide-and-seek was beginning to become childish for a fourteen-year-old, but we didn’t really have many alternatives.
She was fiddling with the purple ribbon tied in her black wavy hair, a satin piece that matched the shade of her gown perfectly. “Do we have to go outside? After all the rain, the ground is sodden and the mud will ruin my stockings. Why can’t we hide inside? Behind the curtains, perhaps? It took Fred ages to find Tressa there last week.”
I tapped my foot impatiently.
“If you want to hide yourself, be my guest,” I said bluntly. “I’m going outside.”
I turned purposely and ran down the long hallway towards the large double front doors. If I wanted anything done around here, especially with Evelyn beings as awkward as she was, then I would have to act as though I didn’t care and hope that she didn’t call my bluff.
I could feel my auburn bob bouncing as I hopped down the steps of the grand staircase with deliberate slowness, waiting for the voice behind me, which would surely come.
Just as expected, my leaving had the desired effect on Evelyn. She was not content to ever be by herself, and she wasn’t particularly good at this game. Primness and dignity were her virtues, and hide-and-seek did sometimes have the habit of compromising those. I thought with a chuckle back to that time when she had become stuck in the airing cupboard, and our friends Lucas and Fred had been forced to use scissors to cut a tangle of corset lace free from the floorboard nails…she hadn’t agreed to playing again for months.
“Penny! Wait up!” Evelyn called as loudly as she dared.
I slowed down to wait for her, and then continued my run at a pace I knew my delicate friend could easily keep.
We reached the grand hall in no time at all. It was the largest room we knew of in the house, a full three floors tall, completely paneled with oak like the rest of the manor save for the thick plum velvet curtains that ran from floor to roof, covering the massive front window. An imposing chandelier made of bronze and solid pearl graced the ornately carved ceiling, casting its soft glow about the room, which received no natural light thanks to the curtains.
We sneaked through the huge carved doors, making little noise, and stepped out in the gardens. A strong smell of dampness and wet grass immediately filled my nose, a result of the excessive rainstorms that had been plundering the manor these past few weeks. It made the plants lush and healthy, but was quite a hindrance for us when we wished to both play outside and remain somewhat clean.
As soon as the door was safely shut, I ran like a bullet across the lawns, making a beeline for the ancient cedar tree on the edge of the woods that surrounded the Boundary. The wet ground under my feet squelched deliciously as I ran, sending splatters of muck up the back of my pristine gown and stockings. It took a lot of concentration not to slip over. I wished that I could run barefoot, and considering the circumstances I didn’t think it was as scandalous as it sounded.
Whilst my feet drummed in harmony with my heartbeat, I could hear the wheezing that was Evelyn fall further and further behind, yet I did not contemplate waiting as the adrenaline coursed through my veins. The others could complain that we were too old, that we should be spending less time messing around and more time focusing on our studies, but I didn’t think that the thrill of such games ever truly went away if you didn’t let it. There were still places in the estate that we hadn’t explored, and age wasn’t going to stop me from finding them. We had found some of our favorite haunts whilst trying to search for a hiding place.
In no time at all I was at the edge of the Boundary woods. They surrounded the manor, creating cover between the lawns and house and the Boundary itself. Surprisingly, they were not at all sinister like some other areas of the estate, contrarily consisting of tall, thick, moss-covered trees, deciduous and evergreen alike, all evenly spaced out with little density and only minimal undergrowth. Naturally, they were void of life other than that of the plants. For some reason, there were never any animals I had read about in the manor, like birds or squirrels. I supposed that they couldn’t get around the Boundary.
I found my target, the cedar, and wrapped my hands firmly around an overhanging branch. I was glad my hands were more sturdy than dainty as I took a deep breath and hauled myself up onto the branch, brow furrowed in effort. I moved slowly and carefully, wriggling along the slippery wet limbs by winding my arms and legs all the way around the middle and pulling myself along.
“Why…did…urgh!” A wheezing Evelyn had appeared a few feet below me; her face flushed a deep pink from running, yet still managing to look beautiful.
I sat up straight to talk to her. Evelyn covered her mouth with a delicate gloved hand in horror, pointing at me as if I’d suddenly sprouted an extra head and large antlers.
“Goodness me!”
I glanced down, and almost burst out laughing. All down the front of my pale blue-grey bodice and petticoats was a thick line of muck caused no doubt from sliding around on the bark, not to mention the damage on my shoes and white stockings. To me, it didn’t matter, but to Evelyn, it was murder. The death of a perfectly good dress.
“Never mind.” I shrugged, laughing airily at the look of increasing horror she sported. “Here, give me your hand and I’ll pull you up.”
“Are you joking?” Evelyn gaped. “This is ridiculous! This is the only frock that goes with my amethyst necklace, so I will not ruin it for the sake of winning hi
de-and-seek! Besides, He will get suspicious.”
With a haughty shudder, Evelyn raised her chin to the clouds and flounced off the stand conspicuously behind a birch only a couple of yards away.
I smirked to myself and resumed my wiggling to reach the prize hiding spot. When I reached the massive trunk, I jumped without thinking about it too much into a hollow just large enough to hide my whole body. This had been easier a couple of years ago, but it was curved so that if I leaned hard against one side passers-by would not be able to see me. All I had to do now was wait.
I thought about Evelyn. She was mortally terrified of the Master, and I supposed that even I had a part of me that feared His wrath. You would have to be inhuman, like Him, not to fear.
I closed my eyes and rested my head against the smooth, woody inside of the cedar, breathing in the fresh damp smell contentedly. I was pretty sure that I would be the last one found, as usual, so I had time to doze off while one by one my friends joined the hunt.
The woman was crying. She could hear them approaching from the outside, surrounding the house and blocking off all possible escapes. Though part of her was screaming in denial, deep down she knew that this would be it, that her brief life as a fugitive would be over in this very room. Had it been worth it? All the hiding, all the fear…had their motive been justified?
She wrapped her arms tightly around the bundle, which was wet with her tears.
“Bernard,” she whispered hoarsely to her husband who was trying to bolt the door. His hands were shaking so much that he could barely fasten the lock as he bent down out of sight from the windows. He turned around and she saw his white face fill with the same despair as hers.
“Bernard, my love,” she sobbed softly. “Don’t. It will do nothing.”
The man choked back a sob of his own, but sank down beside the woman and drew her close to him while placing his other hand on the bundle. He kissed her matted hair long and hard, and her heart fluttered as it always did when they touched.
“Elisabeth. I don’t regret this choice one bit, you understand? So dry those tears and let us face whatever is to come knowing that we have at least made a fighting attempt to stand up against them.”
Even as he said it, his voice wavered and broke. Elisabeth buried her face in his arms and tried to blank her mind.
A loud explosion blew the door open. Though Elisabeth’s screams were muffled by her husband’s tense arms, they were unstoppable, as she clung to him, refusing to look up at whoever was there. She could feel the judders now, wracking Bernard’s body.
Sensing people coming closer she lost all sense of sanity as someone grabbed her bundle and began to wrest it from her. Thrashing and resisting with every ounce of strength, her screaming rose an octave.
“No, no, no, no!” she cried hysterically, eyes stubbornly shut against the enemy. They would not have the satisfaction of seeing the light leave her eyes when they killed her.
They gave one final wrench, and the bundle flew from her clenched hands. She could hear her husband yelling too, now, and the triumphant shouts of the enemy.
“Bernard and Elisabeth, you are hereby charged and convicted of—”
Elisabeth did not wait to listen to the death sentence spoken smoothly by people who were obviously untroubled by the present events. With her eyes still closed, she lunged blindly out at them, trying to grab the bundle, ignoring the shouts from her husband or the warning sirens in the coherent part of her mind. A wave of what felt like static buzzed for a moment through the room, and her head snapped back and one final shriek escaped her lips. She was dead before she hit the floor.
Her last thought was of the bundle.
I woke up with a start, my breathing as fast as it had been when I ran. The dream had been so vivid, so real! The oddest thing was that I had seen the entire thing through the eyes of the woman, Elisabeth, as if I were actually her. I had felt her strong emotions and when she had died, I had felt the world fade before I woke up.
I was slightly unnerved by its clarity, but to be honest I wasn’t too fazed. Avery, one of my friends, sleepwalked, and Lucas would have bizarre dreams that he could remember the next morning, so having realistic ones myself was not an unusual occurrence. Still, I decided to commit it to memory – there was something about it that I couldn’t put my finger on, something important. Oh, well. I would remember soon enough.
The thing that bothered me the most was how long I had been asleep. Had anyone found the others yet? Had they given up, or had it only been a few minutes? Then a new worry sprang into my mind: would Evelyn spill the beans and blurt out my hiding place? It was exactly the sort of thing she would do if she were to get bored or cold.
I poked my head anxiously out of the hollow to get some idea of the situation.
Immediately, I whipped it back inside and pulled my legs closer to me while scooting back against the wall of the tree in excitement. A grin of anticipation curled on my lips as I waited for the four figures I had seen slowly approaching through the evening mist to find me.
“Trust Penny to make us come outside after it’s been raining,” someone was saying. I was pretty sure that it was Avery. “Though how she brought Evelyn with her I might never know.”
“It would be a trick worth knowing,” another child noted. Fred, the seeker. “Then we could come out and play cricket more often – oh, there you are, Evelyn.”
I heard Evelyn give an exaggerated sigh as she stepped out from behind her birch tree.
I counted four figures, so I knew that someone had found Tressa and Lucas as well and I had officially won the game. I could have revealed myself, but I decided to wait and see how long it took them to find me.
“Penny! You win! Come on out!” Avery called.
I held my breath and waited.
“Penny, please! It’s nearly dinner time!”
The emotions immediately changed inside my hiding place as I yelped in surprise and jumped out of the hollow, bumping my head in haste. Had I really dozed for that long? Normally my body clock automatically told me when it was time to congregate in the dining hall, an acquired sense from all those times I had been late.
I swung down off the branch and landed with a thud in front of my friends, frantically dusting off the filth from my dress.
“Oh dear,” I hissed to myself. “Stupid! How long do we have?”
I raised my head to meet the eyes of the group and was shocked to see they were all trying very hard not to laugh. It was then I knew they had duped me.
“It isn’t time for dinner yet, is it?” I sighed, annoyed at myself for falling for such a clichéd trick.
Avery shook his head, smirking from ear to ear. “We couldn’t be bothered to search every nook and cranny of the estate for you…besides, seeing that reaction was much more amusing.”
“That’s a rotten thing to do!” I scolded, only half joking. “You just can’t lose, can you?”
“Who has time for losing when they could be winning? If you’re not cheating, you’re not trying.”
“It isn’t funny, Avery,” Lucas piped up. Avery wiped the smirk from his face and gave us all a ‘here-we-go-again’ look. “No, seriously. I read this story, The Boy Who Cried Wolf, about—”
“Lovely. And I’m sure there will come a time when we have absolutely nothing better to do, in which case I’ll be more than happy to hear about it.” Avery switched his attentions, bored already. “Just because you’re petrified of Madon, it doesn’t mean we need a lecture every time I try to lighten the use of His name.”
With that one word, the whole atmosphere seemed to chill slightly, running from playful and teasing to menacing in a second. A cold breeze swept through the trees, raising goose bumps on my exposed arms, as the branches on the previously tranquil cedar swayed as if they were possessed.
“Shut up, Avery,” Tressa said tersely, putting an arm protectively around Lucas, who turned white with a mixture of irritation and fear on his face. As the last one punishe
d, it was still very fresh in his mind why punctuality was essential.
“Yes, Avery, be a darling and shut up!” I tried to lighten the mood unsuccessfully, receiving only a few raised eyebrows at the terrible attempt at humor.
A heavy silence descended until Evelyn announced, “I’m going to dress for dinner now. Actually, I wouldn’t mind some help from you girls: I lost a pair of earrings last week and can’t for the life of me remember where I saw them last!”
“Quite the emergency,” I mumbled, half to myself.
Still, glad of the excuse to do something other than stand around twiddling our thumbs, we plodded our way across the lawns to the manor without any more hesitation: Evelyn holding her skirt primly above the wet grass; Tressa with her jaw set and expression deep in thought; and then me, galumphing in an ungainly manner at the rear with my shoes sloshing uncomfortably.
2
A while later, our trio descended the grand staircase from our rooms in the south wing to meet with the boys, Lucas, Fred and Avery, in the entrance hall.
Lucas looked up at me as I came down the last few stairs, his ice-blue eyes squinting, straining to see properly after so many hours reading under a dim candle. He smiled, though the tension in the hall was palpable. We had to rein in our natural energies, and it was difficult acting formal. Lucas, I knew, tonight, did it out of fear, though he was generally quiet anyway, and content with his own company. To any new people he might have been difficult to get to know – luckily, there were never any strangers. Just us.
I smiled back in the hope of allaying some of his fears saying a formal, “Good evening,” showing I could behave when I wanted to.
Tressa meantime, passed us with long confident strides, but still managing to look elegant. She was only a breadth shorter than Lucas, and towered over us other two girls. She carried an air of confidence and leadership wherever she went, but her angular face was gentle. She made her way over to Fred, a rather plump being with a contagious smile and handsome features that were usually partially covered by his flop of hazelnut hair.
Boundary Page 1