by RA Jones
“What time is it?” said Ellie, stifling a yawn as the credits rolled on the second film.
“Fifteen minutes to the witching hour,” Ruff said.
“And what’s supposed to happen then?”
“Dunno, but that’s when it all happens in the films, isn’t it?”
“My mum says that the real witching hour is half past three in the morning,” Ellie said knowingly.
“Buzzard,” Ruff retorted, “you’d think they’d all be asleep by then.”
“Tell you what,” Oz suggested, “why don’t we turn all the lights off and just sit by the windows. See if we can see anything outside in the moonlight.”
“Yeah,” Ruff agreed, hopping uncomfortably. “But first I need the loo. Oh, and we’re out of Coke, by the way.”
“Oh, no,” Oz groaned. “I left the other bottle in the fridge.”
Ruff and Ellie looked at him, grinning expectantly as he hurried out and down the atrium stairs, muttering to himself as he went.
“And while you’re at it, get “Revenge of the Gargoyle Ghoul.” I left it in your bedroom,” Ruff yelled after him.
Mrs Chambers had left the kitchen lights on and Oz ran quietly upstairs to his bedroom to fetch the DVD. Ruff’s room was next to his, but on the other side was the locked door to his dad’s study. Oz glanced at it wistfully. It had been like that for over two years now. Ever since his dad had died. One day, when his mother felt strong enough to open it up, he would explore that room and examine all the weird and wonderful things his dad had brought back from his travels. One day.
Back in the kitchen, Oz tried to be as quiet as he could but he had to move some dishes in the fridge to get at the Coke and grimaced as they clinked together. As he backed up with his hands full, the door thudded shut, causing the dishes to clink alarmingly once more. Yet it wasn’t the noise that made the breath suddenly catch in Oz’s throat. He was staring at a calendar stuck to the fridge door by four cake slice-shaped magnets. The calendar had scribbles on it, like, “order four pints milk,” and “hygienist - 9 o’clock.” But it wasn’t what was written on the calendar that Oz’s nervous glance took in. It was how it was hanging. The thudding of the fridge door had displaced a magnet, causing the corner of the calendar to slip. Behind it, on a sheet of paper, was a crude drawing. And it was the single, dark, canine ear now revealed in this drawing that made Oz's stomach lurch.
Once, when things had been very bad, before she’d started the tablets that had helped make her better, Oz had tried asking his mother what exactly was wrong with her. It had been a particularly bad dressing-gown day of constant crying and not eating and Oz had felt more than usually helpless. With a huge effort she’d looked up at him, sensing for once his desperation, her face full of pleading, her voice a hollow whisper.
“Since Michael has gone, it’s like there’s this old black dog that keeps following me around, Oz,” she said, shivering. “He’s always there no matter what I do to try and shake him off. And whenever I look at him he makes me feel so sad and lonely.”
Oz had gone to the window and looked outside. There’d been no sign of a dog, but when he’d finally managed to get back to Mrs Evans’ class at Hurley Street Juniors, he’d drawn an ugly old black mutt in felt pen. At the end of the year he’d taken home all his artwork and promptly forgot all about it until, months later when she was better, Mrs Chambers had found the drawing and pinned it up on the fridge door, fixed the calendar over the top of it to hide it and explained that this could be their signal. If ever she was beginning to feel sad again, she’d shift the calendar so that some of the dog was showing. And if Oz thought that she was acting strangely, he could do the same. She’d called it their early warning sign. Mostly, the calendar hung square over the picture. But sometimes, Oz had come down to the kitchen in the morning and found that a bit of the dog’s ear was showing or perhaps half its head and he’d known that he’d have to be careful and not stress his mother out too much.
He looked at the badly drawn bit of ear again now and breathed in and out to let the ripple of anxiety fade. It was just a kid’s drawing under a calendar after all, wasn’t it? A calendar that was too thick to be held in place by four rubber magnets, which had a tendency to slip if you closed the fridge door too hard. It was stupid to think of the ear as an omen of any kind. After all, his mother hadn’t moved the calendar for months now and she was fine; she’d just made brain pâté, for cripes’ sake. He repositioned the calendar to hide the drawing completely and looked up, pushing all that stuff to the back of his mind.
Through the kitchen window the night beyond looked inky and solid, the only lights coming from the backs of the smaller houses in Tottridge Street. He imagined being in one of those tiny houses on a night like this with Ellie and Ruff. Yet no matter how hard he tried, he knew it just wouldn’t be the same. It wouldn’t have ceilings that looked like they should be in an art gallery or a chandelier with a hunting falcon as its centrepiece. In other words, it just wouldn’t be Penwurt. He held on to that pleasant thought as he made his way back to the dorm.
He decided to set his watch alarm for half past three as he climbed up the staircase, so he put the Coke bottle down to adjust the settings. There was no sound at all in the atrium as midnight approached, but outside, the wind moaned as it gusted around the stone walls and beams creaked as the old place resisted the elements. Oz finished adjusting his watch and was reaching down to pick up the bottle when he heard something.
Footsteps.
Oz looked up suddenly. Maybe Ellie wanted something else from the kitchen. More likely it would be Ruff. But there was no one there.
He started to climb the stairs again. Must have been his imag...Oz stopped and stood stock-still. There it was again. Definitely footsteps. Soft and deliberate and sounding very near. The hairs on his arms stood to attention. He swivelled around. The atrium was empty. Except for the faint moaning of the wind, the only other noise he could hear were the hammers of his heart pounding out a drum roll.
Then the footsteps came again; unmistakable this time. Oz tilted his head to try and pinpoint exactly where they were coming from. Not above. Not below. Suddenly Oz realised he was standing on the step below the first floor landing. Whatever was making that noise was behind the wall separating him from the rooms beyond. Someone or something was walking across the floor in one of those rooms; rooms that had been locked up for years. He craned his neck to listen. The noise had died. He took another step forward and...something tapped on the wall just next to where he was standing. Oz jumped and almost dropped the Coke bottle. He had to stuff his fist in his mouth to stop from crying out. He leapt up the remaining stairs and through the oak door into the dorm. The shock must have shown in his face because Ruff frowned the minute he entered.
“What’s wrong with you?” he asked.
Oz put his fingers to his lips and tiptoed across to where Ellie and Ruff were sitting with the Xbox switched on.
“What is it?” Ellie asked.
“Turn that off and listen,” Oz commanded in a whisper.
“O-oz,” Ellie said with an accusatory stare.
“Shhh. This is not a wind-up, honestly,” Oz whispered again. “Just wait.”
They did. For a very long thirty seconds until...thud...thud...thud...thud.
“What the buzzard...” Ruff whispered.
“Are they...?” Ellie asked.
“Footsteps? Yes, they are,” Oz said.
“Whose?” breathed Ellie.
“Dunno, but they’re coming from downstairs. From rooms that have been locked up for as long as we’ve been here.”
Oz, Ellie and Ruff stared at each either with searchlight eyes. It was Ruff that broke the stalemate.
“Sounds like Hidden Haunted Houses of Britain got it right, then,” he said, swallowing loudly.
Ellie shook her head but she too kept her voice low. “There’s probably a perfectly normal explanation.”
“Is there?” Oz said. “Like I s
aid, as far as I know those rooms have been boarded up for years.”
“Maybe it’s your mum playing a trick on us,” Ruff said waveringly.
“Mum? You heard her. She was more nervous than anyone about us coming here. She’s on emergency standby to come and rescue us, remember? No way is that my mother.”
“Then who is it?” Ellie asked.
“Or what is it?” Ruff mumbled.
Oz and Ellie exchanged glances before Ellie shook her head and rolled her eyes.
“Well, there’s only one way to find out, isn’t there?” Oz said finally.
“You’re not going to go looking?” Ruff asked, horrified.
But Ellie’s face lit up at the suggestion and she reached into her pocket for her mobile. “We totally should. I’ve got three megapixels on my camera phone. We’d make loads of money if we got a picture of it.”
“Wait a minute,” Ruff said. “If it isn’t someone trying to scare us, then maybe it’s burglars.”
“What’s there to burgle?” Oz said with a scornful laugh.
“Okay, but we don’t know, do we?” Ruff pressed on. “I don’t think it’s a brilliant idea to just barge in. It could be really dangerous. In Spirit World Three, there’s this ghoul and...”
“Xbox games again, Ruff?” Ellie said, her head tilted in a scathing glare.
“Loads of these games are based on real legends,” Ruff said defensively.
“I’m sure they are,” Ellie said, “just as I’m sure that you’re just a little bit scared.”
“Don’t tell me you’re not a bit scared too.” Ruff glared back.
Ellie just smiled at him.
Ruff shook his head. “All I’m saying is that we ought to be really careful. Maybe I should stay outside on watch, just in case.”
“Okay, fair point,” Oz said. “But there are three of us. What could possibly happen to the three – ”
The muted thud of more footsteps filtered up from somewhere beneath them once again and Oz never finished his sentence.
“So how do we get in?” Ellie whispered, her eyes glinting with anticipation.
“I know where the key to the padlock is,” Oz said. “Stay here.”
Chapter One of the Obsidian Pebble ends here. Go to your favorite online bookstore to keep reading! Or to the author's website for convenient links
About the Author
RA Jones was born in 1955 and grew up in a mining village in South Wales with his nose in a book and his head in the clouds. He managed to subdue his imagination long enough to carve out a career in medicine, writing whenever the chance arose.
In 1994, writing as Dylan Jones, he published his first scary book for adults, a thriller, which was subsequently made into a two-part film by the BBC. Other scary books followed.
A growing desire to move away from adult thrillers and write for children is what currently preoccupies him. The Obsidian Pebble is the first in a quartet featuring eleven-year-old Oz Chambers whose family inherits a haunted house. The Dreables is first in the Merryweathers Mystery series, the adventures of Sam and his Gran.
RA Jones has three grownup children who have emerged remarkably unscathed into adulthood. When not writing, he practices medicine and lives in darkest West Wales with his understanding (very) wife and two dogs.
Find More Adventures of Oz and his Friends on RAJones' website, http://www.rajonesauthor.com.