‘The last thing she needs is you,’ said Sep, trying to keep control. He gripped his headphones. ‘I can look after her. I can. We don’t need you to do anything.’
‘September –’ said Tench through his teeth, half turning away before looking back, his face calm and open. ‘I’m not trying to be your father. Only to look after you. At some point you’ll have to let people love you. You can’t hide behind the books forever.’
Sep pulled a face.
‘I don’t –’ he began.
Tench sat down, and began winding the reel once more.
‘You’re to stay here,’ he said over its whirr. ‘That’s what your mum wants you to do. She doesn’t need to be chasing you around in her condition, and when one of my closest friends has nearly been killed, you’d better believe I’ve got more pressing concerns than your teenage mood. All right?’
‘No fish talk?’ said Sep.
Tench stopped winding and spread his palms with a half-smile.
‘Just straight talk,’ he said. ‘And here it is: your mother loves you. I love her – and she loves me. Understand?’
‘Yes,’ said Sep, swallowing hard. The guilt began to tear at him with its sharp, heavy claws as he thought of the care and love and attention his mum would need, how he was claiming he could provide these things – while he was making plans to leave her behind.
‘Good. So, what’s it going to be?’
They held each other’s stare, then Sep went straight past Mrs Siddiqui into the cool, shiny corridor.
31
Swallow
Roxburgh stood over the swallow’s twisted corpse. It lay beside a crude fire in a little circle of pale feathers, flies swirling above. Lifting the body on the point of his knife, he watched blood well from its solitary wound and spill over his tattooed hands.
Pellet gun, he thought. Bloody kids.
He breathed deeply, blinking through the pain in his leg. Lundy trembled at his feet, teeth bared, growling so deeply he heard it through the soles of his boots.
‘It’s all right, lass,’ he said, still out of breath. ‘It’s all right.’
He switched his pipe across his mouth, then moved it back again. The doll’s footsteps had vanished. But it was nearby – the trees were empty of birdsong.
It had bitten him – there was a dark, sticky hole in his calf muscle. It had borne down on him with impossible speed, leaping at him with its little mouth. And when Biscay had thrown herself in front of Roxburgh, the dead-smelling thing had bitten her neck.
He blinked, tried to focus, clutched the dog’s limp body to his chest as the flies climbed over him.
‘These is my woods,’ he said aloud, spitting out a shred of tobacco and swiping as the flies covered Biscay’s wounds in buzzing slabs, then swarmed over his face, landing in his eyes and mouth.
Roxburgh stumbled, and might have fallen but for a distant cry that came through the silence like a javelin.
He ran again, Biscay swinging loosely in his hands, Lundy tight to his heels. He heard the voice again and scrambled on through a muddy gorge, snapping two shells into the barrels of his gun.
He raised the weapon, ready for the old offerings, for the puppet and the doll: but found instead a boy – a huge, red-faced, Mohawked boy, his face shiny with tears – swinging a pellet gun like a bat, and screaming.
32
Arkle
‘Hurry up!’ said Arkle, hopping from foot to foot as Sep emerged into the corridor. ‘You took –’ he checked his watch, then rubbed the bruise on his arm – ‘eight minutes! Lamb’s going to kill us!’
‘We’re fine,’ said Sep.
‘We’re not! The farm is miles away, and we’re already hours behind after this morning!’
‘And whose fault was that?’ said Sep, but he quickened his pace as they jumped down the last few steps and jogged through the car park. ‘You got the Geiger counter then?’
Arkle held up the heavy yellow box. With the big handle and round dials, it looked like an old flashlight.
‘Easy-peasy.’
‘Didn’t Mr Bailey see you?’
‘Nah, he wasn’t even there; must have stayed home to wash his pube. And here, check this out.’ Arkle produced a blotchy photocopy from his pocket. ‘I nicked this from his briefcase. He really shouldn’t leave it lying around,’ he added with a serious expression. ‘You never know who might get their hands on it.’
‘You really don’t,’ said Sep, side-eyeing Arkle as he took the crumpled sheet. ‘A staff memo?’
‘Yeah, top secret for teachers, like. Says Magpie’s stable now. And guess who apparently found her and called the police? Creepy old weirdo Thom Roxburgh. Remember him?’
‘The gamekeeper?’ said Sep.
‘Yeah – he was always chasing us with his little dogs … Monday and Biscuit, or something. Bet you he’s the one who attacked her too. So it’s fine; her accident’s nothing to do with the box – it was just some maniac trying to kill her.’
‘How fortunate,’ said Sep.
‘Yup. Productive trip to the science department, I must say – I also lit a small magnesium fire and freed the, um –’
‘Snails?’
‘No, green things. Frenchies eat them.’
‘The dissection frogs?’
‘Frogs!’ said Arkle. ‘Jesus, my head. I’m forgetting everything.’
Sep looked down towards the bay as they emerged on to the road. High white surf was hissing on to the rocks. It was too far away to see the crabs, but they’d be there, massed against the shore, climbing over each other and flexing their claws.
He shuddered, remembering the incident on the beach.
Arkle set off up the hill.
‘I still need to go home, remember?’ Sep called after him, crossing over towards his own house.
‘Nooooooo, no, no, no,’ said Arkle, pulling his sleeve. ‘We’re going to Lamb’s farm. Then no one will get shouted at. Or punched.’
‘Let go! I forgot to bring a new sacrifice – I have to get something!’
‘Just get something from Lamb’s house,’ said Arkle, pleading. ‘One of her teddies – she’s probably got a mountain of them.’
Sep thought for a moment. He and his mum never argued, but a few times she’d been … disappointed. He imagined her coming back and finding him there, after the conversation he’d just had with Tench.
Then he imagined being there alone when Barnaby returned.
‘All right,’ he said. ‘Let’s go.’
‘Thank God!’ said Arkle, his shoulders visibly sagging with relief. He set off with quick, loping strides, flicking his hair out of his collar and lighting another cigarette.
They trotted a few steps in silence, and Sep tried to think of something to say.
‘Why do you smoke?’ he said eventually.
‘I love it,’ said Arkle, the little white tube flapping in his lips.
‘Why? What’s to love about it?’
Arkle exhaled a fat burst of smoke, looking thoughtful.
‘Everything,’ he said. ‘I like the solid square of a new pack – how satisfying it is peeling away the plastic cover, then ripping off the foil. And then they’re in there, all neat, lined up all perfectly – twenty little treats. And the smell … and the taste and the feeling of smoke filling me up inside and then –’ he made an exploding gesture with his hands – ‘whoosh! A big cloud of smoke.’
‘But it smells terrible, and it kills you.’
‘There is that,’ said Arkle, accepting the point with a little frown, ‘but there’s no one alive that could convince me to stop. Besides, I don’t always inhale. I’m not daft,’ he finished, the sunlight gleaming from his tinfoil helmet.
Sep scanned the streets for signs of Barnaby and ran his tongue over his teeth.
‘Have you seen your dragonflies today?’
‘Oh, no – they mostly come at night. I’ll be fine until it gets dark. I mean, I don’t think they’re even real – I just hear the
m. It’s when I’m lying in bed, they’re in my ear – you know that noise when a fly goes right in there?’
Sep turned his head.
‘Sometimes,’ he said.
Arkle blushed.
‘Ah, shit. I wasn’t, I mean –’
‘I’m kidding,’ said Sep.
Arkle gave him a big, soft smile.
‘What did Tench say anyway?’ he said.
‘Nothing.’
‘Ah, come on.’
‘He said you’re in a world of trouble for hitting Manbat.’
‘Pfft, I’ll believe that when I see it. But seriously, you’ve not come out of there like a scalded cat cos you were talking about school stuff. What was it?’
Sep looked at him quickly.
‘He wanted me to stay with him until my mum came to get me. And I had to eat at his house.’
Because I’ve got no friends, he added in his head.
Arkle spluttered on his cigarette.
‘Holy shit,’ he said, grinning. ‘She’s got him giving you messages now? He’s your new daddy.’
Sep ground his teeth.
‘I knew I shouldn’t have told you.’
‘I’m kidding!’ said Arkle, jogging to catch up as they turned on to the farm track. ‘But seriously, holy shit, right?’
‘I know. I mean, if she’s getting sick again – Tench is the last thing she needs. I mean, Tench.’
Arkle pulled a face, then blew out a thin column of smoke.
‘Well, I don’t fancy him, like, but I’m not your mum. Maybe those lips of his are just what forty-year-old women want.’
Sep recoiled.
‘What the hell, man?’
Arkle laughed.
‘Look, I’m just saying you’re only looking at it from your point of view, you know? To your mum, he’s a guy about her age who’s got a good J.O.B. and isn’t a total dick.’
Sep’s mouth was still open.
‘Tench?’ he said again. ‘Tench?’
‘You’re being very short-sighted about all this,’ said Arkle.
‘Oh, really? How would you like it if he started going out with your mum? Would that –’
‘Whoa there,’ Arkle, scowled. ‘Ain’t no need to talk about my mammy. My mammy’s a virgin – you’re looking at an immaculate conception right here. Listen, Tench and your mum seem pretty serious, but you’ll be away on the mainland and you won’t have to worry about it, right?’
‘I guess.’
Sep took the rock Mack had given him from his pocket.
‘You want a bit of this?’
Arkle shook his head, then flashed his massive teeth at Sep.
‘That’s just tooth rot, like.’
‘I know. My teeth are killing me; I’m having to suck on this.’
Arkle grinned.
‘How come you eat rock if you hate it here so much?’
‘What’s that got to with anything?’
‘It’s just such a Hill Ford thing. I mean, it’s got the name of the town running through the middle.’
Sep folded the jagged piece of rock into his pocket. ‘It’s just my favourite sweet,’ he said.
He wondered what might be read in himself if he was torn in two. He felt the jumble of the last twenty-four hours boiling inside him: his mum, the box, Barnaby, the crows, Daniels, the noise in his deaf ear – each one fighting to the surface like a drowning rat.
‘There it is, Castle Lambert,’ said Arkle, stepping over the tree roots that split the track. The farmhouse was still far off, but already they could see its big red door and the curtains fluttering like ghosts from its open windows. The sweetness of summer flowers billowed around them in thick, heady waves.
‘I love it here, like,’ Arkle went on, looking around as they jogged towards the house. ‘Why do you want to move away?’
Sep shrugged.
‘My mum says I’ve always had itchy feet.’
‘Me too! My mum puts a special powder in my socks. But why would anyone leave here? Hill Ford is class.’
‘I want a good job.’
‘Yeah,’ said Arkle hesitantly. ‘I used to think I might do something at the hospital, but I’m not going to be qualified for anything.’
‘You could volunteer,’ said Sep.
Arkle made a face.
‘What’s the point of that? I mean, apart from helping the sick. Nah, I’m not going to get anywhere. I wasn’t kidding when I said I’d fallen asleep in my maths exam. Even I didn’t think I was as thick as that. I’m getting worse.’
‘How is that possible?’ said Sep.
Arkle shot him a look.
‘I didn’t mean it like that,’ said Sep quickly. ‘I meant how could that happen?’
‘I don’t know, but I am. I mean, I couldn’t remember what a frog was called just now. A frog! Sometimes when I’m in class I can actually feel the things they’re trying to teach me like little strings in my head, and I try and grab them, I really do – but they just slip away, and the last few days it’s happening more and more. You ever tried holding a fish? They’re bastards to hold on to, fish, and so is … that guy. The triangle guy.’
‘Pythagoras?’
‘That’s the bugger,’ said Arkle, clicking his fingers.
‘Pythagoras is a bastard?’
‘A slippery bastard.’
Arkle began to climb the gate at the end of the long driveway. He checked his watch. ‘We might actually get away with this. But you’re taking the blame if she kicks off, all right? Say you got detention, but bailed. That sounds badass.’
‘But it’s not true.’
Arkle looked down from the gate and raised his eyebrows.
‘You want to tell them that Tench was planning a candlelit dinner for the two of you?’
He dropped down and kept running.
‘Fair point,’ said Sep, and climbed after him.
33
Tarot
The old lady known locally as Christine the Psychic stirred her soup, pausing every once in a while to rattle a box of cat treats at the back door.
‘Puss, puss, puss,’ she called in her sing-song voice. ‘Here, puss!’
In her distraction she spilled some of the bright liquid on the linoleum, and left it there as a further incentive for the cat.
But by the time her soup began to bubble, the animal still had not come, and she took her lunch into the sitting room, arranging the buttered bread and the tea things on her tray.
Her house was old and small, a post-war wooden three-room that smelled of nutmeg and cloves. Its walls were hung with dreamcatchers and feather wards, and the surfaces were piled with the occult bric-a-brac of a thousand yard sales. Everything in the room had some connection to the world that existed beyond human sight, except one: the stag’s head her father had mounted before he died. It remained, glass-eyed and mighty, on the back wall above the settee – its antlers hung with the chiming silver of charms and totems.
Christine turned on the TV and sat below the stag, lifting the tray on to her lap.
‘Oh, this again,’ she said as static filled the screen.
She rose and crossed the room, clicking the off switch with a thunk. Then she sat on the settee once more and blew on her soup.
‘What on earth –’
There was something on her seat. She cocked her leg, patting her buttocks and the fabric of the settee.
It felt damp – but so did everything. The whole town seemed to be sweating in the heat.
She took a spoonful of soup, slurping a little from the deep spoon. The silver above her head chimed as the breeze moved playfully through the room.
Christine reached to her side and lifted a Tarot card from the top of the deck on the table, flipped it over dramatically.
‘The World Reversed,’ she said. ‘Feeling stuck. Nearly at the finishing line.’
She flipped the next card and looked at the skeletal figure.
‘Death,’ she said, sticking out her tongue. ‘Sucks to
you, boyo.’
She took some more soup, this time dipping her bread and letting it soak.
A petrol lawnmower started outside – the Brodys’ boy, next door, earning his allowance. Christine rolled her eyes, set down her tray and crossed to the window.
‘I’ll pay you twice as much to shut up!’ she shouted as she slid the glass closed, trapping the sound outside and the heat in the room.
She sat back down, lifted her tray. And felt the seat wet again below her legs.
She hopped up, feeling embarrassed although there was no one there.
‘What on earth is –’
A drop fell into the hollow worn by her body, at the centre of a little damp patch that was forming there.
Christine looked up – and screamed.
Spit was running from the dead black mouth of the stag’s head and pooling on the edge of its lips.
‘No!’ she cried, backing away as the antlers began to swing, filling the room with the clang of metal. ‘No!’
As the head thrashed on the wall Christine shut the kitchen door, pulling a chair across to keep it closed – but as she turned to run she slipped on the spilled soup and cracked her skull on the kitchen worktop. Vision fading, she gripped the charms around her neck so hard the skin split on her palms.
Her body lay a while in the heat, the mower growling its way across the lawn outside. Presently came the sound of antlers smashing on to carpet, and the swish of a cat flap as it swung gradually closed.
34
Lamb
The big red door opened to reveal Mrs Boyle, the housekeeper.
‘All right, Mrs B?’ panted Arkle, his breathing not yet recovered from their run.
Mrs Boyle’s big owl-glasses peered down at them. Her face was wide and lined, red from sun and creased by laughter. Sep remembered it well – it was the face that had run the house since Lamb’s mum had died, and that had loomed over trays of sandwiches and lemonade during the summer of sacrifice.
‘Hooper and Hope,’ she said. ‘The whole gang’s here now.’
‘Hi, Mrs Boyle,’ said Sep. ‘Are we last then?’
The Sacrifice Box Page 14