The Stone House

by Patrick Ness

  ‘I think you’ll find they’ll say the same thing—that the site scared them away. There are also potential owners of the flats I’m building prepared to say that after reading his alarming stories it put them off purchasing.’

  ‘I’m sure you can get people to say anything you want them to, given enough money and flashes of your teeth.’

  The smile vanishes. He’s the Cheshire Cat in reverse.

  ‘Are you implying that I’d bribe people? I do hope not. That would be slander, as I’m sure you’re aware, Miss . . .’ He pauses. ‘I don’t believe you told me your name, let alone showed me your credentials.’

  ‘You never asked. Showing great interest in your potential client, aren’t you? It’s true, I did none of these things and I am implying that your case is extremely weak. I think you’ll find that my client is not worth your attention. I’m sure you never intended to see any of your threats through.’

  Oliver stands and comes out from behind his desk. The veins stick out on his forehead. For one moment, she sees something flash through his eyes that reminds her of someone she met back home. A general. She shakes it off.

  ‘I don’t want anyone unauthorised on my property,’ he says. ‘It’s private. I’ll do with it as I wish, as is my right. Any evidence that he’s inciting trespass and I’ll show you exactly what threats are.’

  ‘I think you’ll find you just have,’ Miss Quill says. She picks up her bag, then bends and places a hand flat on the glass table, leaving a print from which a palmist could tell her fortune. She suspects her fortune, given the look on his face, does not include a birthday card from Mr Constantine Oliver.

  TWENTY-SIX

  NIGHTWATCHING

  The street is quiet, as if every house, block, and person is waiting with them, holding a collective breath. The cat from the playground passes, tail switching. It stares at the house.

  ‘Are you sure you’re alright?’ Ram whispers to April. ‘You could just drop us off and pick us up later. Or stay at home—you did have concussion.’

  ‘I’m not letting you have all the fun,’ April says.

  ‘You call being in the same place as this lot “fun”?’ Ram says.

  ‘Alright then, I’m not letting you have stories to tell without me,’ April replies.

  ‘I thought you weren’t coming,’ Matteusz says.

  ‘If it were up to me, I’d have left you to it,’ Ram says.

  ‘I persuaded him,’ April says, linking arms with Ram.

  ‘Shhh,’ says Tanya.

  The front door of the house opens. A man comes out, locks the door, and checks several times that it’s secure. Hurrying down the path, he looks back to its black windows and pulls his jacket tight around him. He walks quickly away, whistling loudly.

  No one speaks. He hurries past them without acknowledging them in any way. A phone vibrates, making Matteusz jump.

  ‘Charlie says we can go in,’ he whispers, looking down at his phone. ‘He’s asked if we’ve brought any food.’

  ‘I’ve got molasses cake,’ Tanya says, holding up her bag. She’d told her mum that she needed a whole one. She wishes she hadn’t now. It’s really heavy. And she’ll have to share it.

  Miss Quill walks up behind them. She’s wearing a fleece, a rucksack, and huge sunglasses. She looks like a spy masquerading as a backpacker. Looks like the rucksack is the nearest they’ll get to a proton pack. ‘I want it known now,’ she says, ‘that I am here in order to make sure Charlie does not die, as that would not end well for me. I am not here to babysit any of you. Do you understand?’

  ‘Perfectly,’ Tanya says.

  ‘Good. I hope someone has arrived here with a plan,’ Miss Quill says.

  ‘Check the readings; see what effect the creatures have other than scare us witless; find Faceless Alice,’ Matteusz says, as if ticking items off his ‘Unassailable Plan’ checklist. He walks round to the boot, opens it, and takes out a stepladder. ‘And climb a ladder.’

  ‘Can we not call her that?’ Tanya says. ‘Her name probably isn’t even Alice. Don’t jump to any conclusions about any of this.’

  ‘Good advice, Tanya,’ Miss Quill says and, just as Tanya is about to look smug, ‘make sure you follow it.’

  ‘Do you have the results back yet on those samples, Miss Quill?’ Tanya asks.

  Miss Quill nods. ‘I got them just before I came out. I had to go and collect them. That’s why I’m late. The dust is carbon based but contains traces of elements that aren’t known on Earth.’

  ‘So they are alien, whatever these things are?’

  ‘All I know is that the dust features unknown elements. None of which is known to my planet either. That wasn’t the most interesting result, though,’ she says. She takes out her binoculars and looks up at the top window but says nothing.

  ‘Go on, then,’ Tanya says.

  ‘What am I supposed to go on?’ Miss Quill says, looking puzzled.

  ‘What’s the most interesting result?’ April jumps in, her tone one of utter exasperation.

  ‘Oh,’ she says. ‘I’ll tell you inside.’

  Tanya’s got to hand it to Miss Quill: She knows how to wind people up.

  As they walk up to the stone house, they hear a key in a lock. Then another. Charlie’s right on time: he said he’d let them in when the evening guard left. The front door opens. It’s surprisingly quiet. The door to an old stone house should creak a bit, sigh at least, if not give out a full-scale CRAAAAK. Charlie doesn’t appear.

  They follow each other in single file down the path, Matteusz being careful not to take out plants with the stepladder. He needn’t bother: the workers have trodden down most of the plants; wildflowers and weeds all flattened to the ground; dandelion clocks stopped, their seeds lost to the wind.

  Tanya feels a tide of sadness, as if coming in waves from the house. Don’t jump to conclusions, she tells herself.

  In the doorway, Miss Quill digs the torches out of her rucksack and hands them out. Ram shines his torch under his chin. ‘Woooo,’ he says to April.

  She shakes her head in despair and laughs at the same time. ‘Does that ever get old?’ she asks.

  ‘Noooo,’ he says in the same ghostly voice.

  ‘You are both children,’ Matteusz says, squeezing past and walking in. He puts down the ladder and sends light into the hall. ‘Charlie,’ he calls out.

  No reply. His voice carries along corridors.

  ‘Charlie? Are you hiding?’ Matteusz says. ‘Because there are better times for that.’

  Footsteps echo upstairs. Tanya gets a little closer to Miss Quill.

  ‘There you are,’ Matteusz says as the light finds Charlie standing at the entrance to the kitchen. Charlie inclines his head.

  ‘Right,’ Miss Quill says. ‘Keep your phones on you at all times, just in case. I have some equipment for you all, but we should check something first.’ She holds out her black pen.

  ‘I told you it was a gadget,’ Ram says.

  ‘This,’ Miss Quill says, as if it’s the most obvious thing in the entire world and they’re all unbelievably stupid for not knowing, ‘is an artron energy detector. Among other things. It measures the amounts of artron energy in any location. Coal Hill School, for example, delivers a very high result. Anything that may have emerged through the Rift will cause the cartridge to burn indigo.’

  She pauses, unscrewing the pen. It looks like an ordinary pen cartridge inside, one of those that will, at some point in the day, cover your hands, anywhere you put your hands, and the pocket in which you keep it, in splodged ink. The cartridge turns bright purple, sending out a lilac glow to her face.

  ‘Artron energy is present,’ Tanya says, looking about the dark house. Part of her is disappointed, and annoyed at herself. Her instinct is off—she was sure this was not about aliens.

  ‘But not in high quantities,’ Miss Quill says, checking a reading on the pen lid. ‘We’re not dealing with a mass invasion, most likely an isolated case.’
<
br />   ‘A lone, lost traveller?’ Tanya says, mainly to herself.

  ‘Maybe,’ Miss Quill says, ‘or it could be a fracture; the creation of the Rift may have caused splinters to occur, like when there’s a crack in glass. It doesn’t stay in one place. We won’t know for sure until we track down the source of the energy.’ She sneezes and scratches her nose. ‘It seems even more dusty in here than last time.’

  ‘Does it flash brighter when we get near the source?’ Ram says.

  ‘This isn’t hide-and-seek,’ Miss Quill snaps. ‘It won’t beep to tell us whether we’re “hot” or “cold”.’

  A beeping sound comes from her rucksack.

  ‘What’s that?’ Matteusz says.

  Miss Quill pockets the pen and looks inside her bag. She pulls out a long black box. The dials on the front are hitting red. She frowns. ‘This shouldn’t be happening,’ she says.

  ‘What?’ Matteusz asks.

  ‘Hold it for me,’ Miss Quill says, handing Matteusz the contraption. She rummages again in her bag. The beeping gets faster, more frantic.

  ‘What is this?’ Matteusz asks, looking closely at the dials.

  ‘An EMF meter. Measures fluctuations in electromagnetic fields,’ she says. ‘I brought it, as you said you wanted ghost-hunting equipment. I didn’t expect it to go off.’ She pauses as she reaches further into the rucksack.

  ‘I’ve got another one, in case that one is broken. Always carry a backup.’ She pulls out another one and turns it on.

  Beep. Beep. Beep.

  ‘Could that one be broken too?’ Tanya asks hopefully. ‘Do you have a backup for your backup?’

  ‘Er, Matteusz,’ April says slowly. She’s using her ‘keep calm’ voice.

  ‘What is it?’ Tanya says. Her heartbeat picks up. If April is using her ‘keep calm’ voice then there is something to be not calm about.

  April’s hand rises, points towards Charlie. The torches all land on him. There is something different about his face. It’s cold, impassive, as if carved from marble. He stares at Matteusz, lip curled into a sneer. His hand snaps out, holding Matteusz by the throat. Matteusz drops the beeping box, grabbing Charlie’s hand and trying to unclamp it from his own neck. Charlie’s face is full of hate.

  ‘Stop it, Prince,’ Miss Quill shouts, slamming the heel of her palm into Charlie’s elbow so that he loosens his grip. ‘Now.’

  Charlie whips round to face her and throws her against the wall. ‘You’re next,’ he says.

  ‘Am I really?’ she says. ‘Interesting.’

  Ram runs at Charlie, wrestling him down onto the ground. ‘I will kill you,’ Charlie says to him, calm in a way that April never intended. Their faces are centimetres apart. ‘I won’t want to, but I will.’

  Tanya holds down one of Charlie’s arms, feeling him struggle, the sudden strength of him. April, Matteusz, and Ram help, all attempting to hold him still. Dropped torches roll across the floor, sending wheels of light around the hallway, creating a strobe effect that freezes Charlie’s snarling face into film frames.

  ‘This isn’t you,’ Matteusz says, his eyes shining with tears. ‘Please, Charlie, this isn’t you. It’s the house.’

  ‘What if he’s possessed?’ April says, her voice straining with the effort of holding Charlie. ‘He’d never do this.’

  ‘He isn’t possessed,’ Miss Quill says calmly. She folds her arms and leans against the wall.

  ‘What’s your problem?’ Tanya shouts at her. ‘You’re supposed to look after him.’

  ‘My job is to protect the Prince, nothing else,’ Miss Quill replies.

  Charlie roars with rage and struggles free, pushing Tanya away with force and grabbing at Matteusz. The beeping has increased to one long scream. Charlie and Matteusz are a tangle of limbs in the half-dark. It’s impossible to tell who is who.

  Something moves towards them. Tanya grabs one of the torches from the floor and shines it at Charlie and Matteusz. An arm reaches out for Charlie. As he turns, a hand finds his hate-filled face. He stops. Lets go of Matteusz. A crack appears in his forehead, widening out, splintering into a hundred cracks that run down his neck and his arms. He points at the figure that touched him. Then collapses into dust.

  ‘No,’ Matteusz shouts, dropping to the floor and raking through the ashes with his fingers.

  ‘Hey,’ the figure says. He bends down into a beam of light at Matteusz’s feet. ‘It’s me.’ Charlie reaches out and holds Matteusz, kissing him and stroking him. ‘I’m here.’

  ‘But you were, you just . . .’ Matteusz says, looking from Charlie to the pile of dust that was Charlie, or at least used to be or that’s what it looked like.

  ‘It wasn’t real,’ Charlie says.

  ‘It bloody felt real,’ Tanya says, rubbing her head from where she was thrown against the stairs.

  ‘But you turned him, or you, or I don’t know what, into dust,’ Matteusz says, pulling back from Charlie. ‘Are you the real one or . . .’ He stops talking and looks down at the dust again, as if words can’t go anywhere near to touching what happened.

  ‘What do you really think?’ Charlie says, lifting Matteusz’s head to look him in the eye.

  Matteusz holds Charlie’s soft gaze, then touches his cheekbones, his neck, and his hands. ‘I think it’s you,’ he says.

  ‘I know it’s me,’ Charlie replies.

  ‘It’s a good job I took your advice, Miss Quill,’ Matteusz says.

  ‘Which part?’ she asks.

  ‘Always bring a backup. You never know when your loved one is going to disintegrate.’

  His nervous laughter breaks the tension, until they hear it echoing round the house far longer than it should. It seems to linger in the top floor, creepy giggles ricocheting between walls.

  ‘What or who was that?’ April says, pointing to the small pyramid of ashes.

  They all turn to Miss Quill. She stares back at them.

  ‘Don’t look at me,’ she says. ‘I knew when I fought the imposter that it couldn’t be the Prince. My head would’ve exploded if it were the real one. And my head appears to be in position. I have no idea what it was, though. I don’t have the answer stashed in my backpack.’

  ‘You’ve got everything else in there,’ Tanya says.

  ‘Can you not find a leader among you?’ she says. ‘No? Why did I even ask?’ She sighs. ‘Keep in twos. That may prevent too many deaths by dust doppelgängers. Natural wastage is, of course, inevitable.’

  ‘Well, that’s just charming,’ Ram says.

  ‘And please, Prince, no going off into corners and turning each other into dust, if you think you can manage that. If you can’t, then clear up after yourselves. There are enough allergens about the place as it is.’ She sneezes again.

  ‘That’s one advantage in being single,’ Tanya says.

  Charlie lets go of Matteusz and steps forward. ‘Who let you in?’ he asks. ‘I was upstairs when I heard you shouting, came down to find you wrestling me. I had a dream like that a while ago, although that one was a lot more pleasant.’

  ‘We assumed it was you,’ Ram says. He looks around the hallway as if the mystery person is going to step out of the shadows and present herself. Tanya’s sure it’s Amira.

  ‘I’m supposed to sweep round the house every hour and report anything unusual.’ Charlie pauses. ‘What do you think I should say about this?’

  ‘I wouldn’t say it’s unusual at all,’ Tanya says. ‘Not for us anyway.’

  ‘Then let’s go and find something really unusual.’

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  FALSE SECURITY

  Miss Quill hands Tanya the extra EMF reader. ‘See if that helps you find your girl in the window,’ she says.

  ‘Is this handmade?’ Tanya says, looking down at a black box with wires sticking out of it, half impressed, half disappointed that they don’t have shiny ghost-catching equipment. It’s stopped beeping, at least. It was getting annoying.

  ‘I soldered it myself,’ Miss Q
uill replies, stroking the box.

  ‘What should I do if it goes off?’ she says. ‘I wasn’t expecting to deal with actual ghosts.’

  Miss Quill tuts. ‘Variations in the electromagnetic field do not necessarily indicate the presence of spirits,’ she says. ‘There are many alien life-forms that have a different magnetic resonance. It could even be based on geological conditions—the Earth has a pretty strong magnetic field. You’d be in trouble if it didn’t.’

  ‘So it could be what’s underneath the house?’ Tanya says.

  ‘Possibly. They’re intending to dig out the foundations. Any tests could have disturbed it.’

  ‘There could be an old graveyard underneath,’ Matteusz says.

  ‘Could be,’ Miss Quill says, ‘many areas of London are built upon graves and plague pits.’

  ‘Just what we need to hear, thanks, Miss Quill,’ Tanya says. ‘I’ll never be able to walk around London without thinking of that.’

  Miss Quill frowns. ‘Ignorance is not a position of strength. It brings false security. Now. You have a meter reading to do. If you locate areas of fluctuation then that would be a start. Go off with Charlie and Matteusz. Try to be civil. My group is going to try to find the basement.’

  ‘Basement?’ Tanya says. ‘I thought there were only three floors.’

  ‘Didn’t I say?’ Miss Quill says, rummaging again in her rucksack and pulling out a blueprint and a map. ‘This was the other reason I was late. I obtained a blueprint for the new development and then thought that a map of the house would be useful. I found the layout of the house from when the conservatory was put on.’ She thrusts it at April.

  April studies it. ‘There’s a door down to the basement in the kitchen,’ she says. ‘We missed it before.’

  ‘And you want us to . . . ?’ Tanya says, turning to Miss Quill.

  ‘Go somewhere other than the basement. That way if we meet our deaths down there in a horrifying yet, no doubt, noble fashion, you will live to tell the world,’ Miss Quill says.

  ‘You think something’s down there, don’t you?’ Ram says.

  ‘What else have you been keeping back, Miss Quill?’ Tanya asks. ‘And why?’