It wouldn’t be such a bad idea to look over the mound again either. Shine his torch right inside that burrow. There was always the chance he had missed something earlier.
He stared out through the trees, his skin creeping as he remembered the strange silhouette he had glimpsed that morning.
Was it possible he had seen a ghost of some kind? He’d never believed in such things before, but the outline of the shape had definitely been human, and there was no point pretending otherwise.
If it was a ghost, then what was it doing on the mound? Could it really and truly have sensed his presence? And what if it was still there … waiting for him?
He hesitated.
It would be so easy to turn back now. In less than five minutes he could be inside the house and safe under the covers again. But that was hardly going to find his mother’s angel, was it?
Pointing his torch back towards the forest floor, he trudged on in the direction of the roaring river.
He needed to get a grip on himself – and fast.
It was the memory of his mother that mattered. Not some stupid thing that probably didn’t even exist.
Rose reached behind her and dragged the quilt off the bed.
The house was growing colder by the minute and outside the rain seemed to have turned to sleet. What was wrong with this place? It was supposed to be summer.
Wrapping the quilt round her shoulders, she knelt down beside the window and checked her cousin’s progress.
It had seemed like an age before he had finally emerged from the forest. She had even begun to wonder whether he had got lost amongst the army of pines, and when at last a tiny light had appeared on the other side of the river, a surge of something that felt very much like relief had coursed through her.
She watched as the beam of light advanced up the side of the mound, cutting through the sleet in the same sweeping, scouring motion.
It stilled at the place Phoenix had lingered beside that morning, then disappeared completely, as if it was being focused right down inside the earth.
Shifting slightly, she knelt up to get a better look, then jerked back.
The floorboard she was kneeling on felt warm…
Rose moved to one side and ran her hand over its woodwormy surface. The board was loose at one end.
She bent down beside it, her pulse quickening … and sliding the tips of her fingers under its free edge, levered it towards her.
Phoenix shone his torch into the burrow.
There was definitely something down there.
Whether or not it was the silver angel he couldn’t be sure – it was a long way down and almost totally covered in sandy soil. But it certainly looked about the right size and glinted in the torchlight if he got the angle just so.
He pressed himself flat against the wet ground and reached into the hole with his free hand. The air inside was warm, and what was more, the further in he stretched the warmer it seemed to become. It was as if the object was giving out a heat all of its own.
There was no way he could get to it, though. It had to be a couple of metres down at least. He would have to clear away some of the soil at the surface before he stood a chance of even touching it. And it wasn’t going to be easy, either. This section of the mound was riddled with animal holes – one false move and the earth would come toppling in on itself.
Heaving himself back on to his knees, Phoenix focused the torch on the edge of the burrow and began to scoop away the soil with his bare hands…
…and behind him, hidden in the veil of falling sleet, hovered the pale silhouette.
Rose snatched her hand away and the floorboard flipped back into place.
She shook the film of grime and dust from her fingers, her skin prickling all over.
Whatever it was that was down there had felt hard and warm and – dare she even think it? – alive.
Steadying herself against the wall, she glanced out of the window once more.
The torchbeam had reappeared on the mound and the light was being focused in the same place as before.
Rose scrambled to her feet.
Light! Of course! That was what she needed! Light would make everything OK again. Light would make everything normal. She stumbled across the room and flicked on the light switch.
Nothing.
What? The electricity had been working fine earlier on. There must have been a power cut. Well, that was typical, wasn’t it?
She fumbled inside her rucksack for her torch and crossed back to the window.
It was no good – she was going to have to find out what was underneath that loose floorboard. She couldn’t just sit around all night wondering.
Gingerly she lifted it up and shone the torch inside the cavity between the attic floor and the ceiling below.
And then she caught her breath.
In amongst the dirt and the cobwebs was a rusty old iron bolt…
…and it was glowing.
8.
THE CONNECTION
How or why he suddenly sensed it he didn’t know.
The silhouette made no sound as it shimmered behind him. But in the time it took Phoenix to turn from the edge of the burrow and register its presence, he had lost his balance and fallen back against the fragile surface of the mound.
His arms jerked upwards … the torch catapulted from his hand…and beneath the weight of his fall the tunnel-ridden earth began to crumble in upon itself.
Grab something! Anything! Get a hold of the edge!
But there was nothing to grab hold of … nothing to keep him from falling into the burrow.
He glimpsed the shadowy silhouette above him… a fragment of sleety sky … and then there was nothing but raining earth and darkness.
Another second and she would never have seen it happen.
She had turned to look out of the window, the strange iron bolt now lying beside her on the sill, and watched as her cousin’s torchbeam shot up through the darkness, then plummeted to the ground and died.
Rose pressed her face against the glass, willing the light to reappear.
Something was wrong out there, she just knew it.
It was as if Phoenix had simply lost control of the torch … as if something had startled him.
She waited another few moments, then twisted round from the window and began tugging on her clothes, her fingers fumbling over the zips and buttons.
There was nothing else for it.
She was going to have to get over there herself.
Rose pulled on her waterproof and glanced around the attic bedroom.
She picked up her torch and reached for the iron bolt on the windowsill, brushing the cobwebs from its glowing surface and pushing it into her jeans pocket.
Exactly what it was, she had no idea.
But she wasn’t going to let it out of her sight.
Phoenix jolted to a halt at the bottom of the burrow and opened his mouth in a silent scream.
He was going to be buried alive…
Earth was piling up on top of him faster than he could clear it away, squeezing the breath from his lungs.
He thrust out with his hands, clawing at the collapsing sides for something to grab hold of … but each time he was driven back by another torrent of cascading soil.
It was hot down here too … so hot he could scarcely breathe what little air there was, and beneath him one of his legs was growing numb with cramp.
He winced as something hard and sharp gouged into his thigh.
The silver angel…
Phoenix scrabbled blindly beneath him, seeking out the cool silver of his mother’s keepsake.
But his fingers met instead with a strange and otherworldly warmth.
Rose thundered through the forest, her torch illuminating a trail of scuffed-up earth and pine needles between the trees.
Her cousin had certainly done a good job of showing her the way…
Not far off she could hear the rushing of water, and moments later she was bu
rsting out into the freezing air and skidding to a standstill beside a huge fallen pine tree.
The river was wider than she’d imagined – much wider. And this tree trunk had to be how Phoenix had crossed it.
Vaulting on to the makeshift bridge, she began to shuffle across, the soles of her trainers skimming the seething surface below.
She jumped off on to the opposite bank and stumbled through the undergrowth towards the embankment, then jammed the torch between her teeth and heaved herself up it.
At the top she paused to catch her breath.
She was far enough away from the house to call to him now, surely? Her uncle would never hear her from this side of the river.
“Phoenix!” she yelled. “Phoenix!”
But though she strained her ears against the vast darkness, his answer never came.
It was only the faintest of sounds, but it was enough to ignite in Phoenix a tiny flicker of hope.
Somebody was out there! Somebody had called his name!
There it was again – small and muffled, but closer this time. Much closer.
He lunged against the weight of earth on top of him, the object he had mistaken for the silver angel clenched in his fist.
And then he felt it…a hand plunging through the earth towards him and grasping his own, wrenching him free and pulling him towards the surface.
“Phoenix!”
His cousin was kneeling over him, brushing the soil from his hair and his eyes.
“What happened?”
Phoenix opened his mouth to speak, but his body convulsed in a violent fit of choking. He writhed on the ground, retching up hard gobbets of earth.
“How did you know I was over here?” he spluttered at last. “How did you know I was in trouble?”
Rose sat back and wiped her hands on her jeans.
“I couldn’t sleep,” she said, picking up her torch from the edge of the burrow. “I got up and saw you going over to the mound. And then your torch flew up into the air, like you’d been scared or something. And, well, I just knew I had to get over here as fast as I could.”
Phoenix struggled up on to his elbows and scanned the sleety darkness for the silhouette, but he could see nothing.
“What is it?” Rose asked. “What are you looking for?” She looked at him more closely. “I’m right, aren’t I? Something did freak you out earlier. That’s why you let go of the torch. What happened? Did someone follow you out here?”
“Of course not,” mumbled Phoenix.
He forced his attention back to Rose.
“I’d been searching for something I’d dropped yesterday, OK? I reckoned it might have fallen down a burrow. But this part of the mound is full of animal holes, and when I tried to reach it the earth gave way beneath me. That’s when I let go of the torch. It was as simple as that.”
“What was it you’d lost?” asked Rose.
“Something my mother gave me. A – a little silver angel.”
“An angel?”
Phoenix narrowed his eyes at his cousin. “Have you got a problem with that? Mum gave it to me just before she died, if you must know. It was special to me.”
Rose gestured towards his clenched fist. “I take it you found it, then?”
“I thought I had,” said Phoenix. “I thought I saw it glinting up at me from the bottom of the burrow. But it wasn’t the angel. It was something else. Something a bit weird, actually.”
He opened his fist and they both gazed down into the palm of his hand.
Lying there, half covered in earth, was a rusty iron bolt.
“It’s warm,” said Phoenix, holding it out to Rose. “Hot, even. Just like the earth I found it in. Here – feel it. What do you think it is?”
Rose didn’t answer.
She was pulling something out of her jeans pocket and placing it beside the object in her cousin’s hand…
…an identical glowing bolt.
“Where did you get that?” exclaimed Phoenix. “Have you been over here too?”
Rose shook her head. “I found it in the house about twenty minutes ago. Just before you fell into the burrow. It was underneath a loose floorboard in my bedroom.”
“In your bedroom?” echoed Phoenix. “In Mum’s bedroom?”
Rose blinked at him. “What?”
There was a moment’s silence.
Phoenix placed the two bolts side by side on the mound and trailed his finger over them.
“Gravenhunger Manor used to belong to my mother,” he said softly, his eyes fixed upon the bolts. “She lived here for a while when she was a child. That’s why we’re here.”
Rose gaped.
“To your mother? But that’s not what your dad said. He told me you were looking after the place for someone over the summer. A friend, I thought.”
“That’s because I asked him not to say anything,” said Phoenix. “He only told me about it a couple of days ago, and I needed some time to get my head around it all. Even Dad didn’t know about the house until the solicitor’s stuff came through a few weeks after Mum died.”
Rose stared past him into the thickening sleet, a glazed expression on her face.
“Of course,” she murmured. “The initials in the headboard. So that’s what they stand for…”
“Initials?”
“E.P.,” explained Rose. “Your mother’s initials. They’re scratched into the bed in the attic.” She looked back at her cousin. “I still don’t understand, though. Why would your mother want to keep a house a secret?”
Phoenix picked up the bolt he had found at the bottom of the burrow and began to scratch away the surface covering of earth.
“Just before we came down here I found a letter,” he said. “A letter my mum had written to Dad shortly before she died.”
He paused.
“Perhaps I shouldn’t be telling you this. It feels weird talking about it. Like I’m breaking Mum’s trust or something.”
“Oh, please go on. I won’t say anything to anyone, I promise…”
Phoenix prised away the last of the earth and rubbed the bolt on the sleeve of his waterproof.
“In the letter it said that something terrible had happened here when she was a child. Something she didn’t want anyone to know about.”
“And it didn’t say what it was?”
“No,” replied Phoenix. “Just that it had been her fault. And that she had never been able to forgive herself for it.”
Rose’s eyes widened.
“Have you tried to find out what this terrible thing was?”
Phoenix shook his head. “I haven’t had the chance,” he said. “I promised myself I would, of course. I was planning on searching the house, in case something had been left lying around. And I thought I’d ask a few questions down in the village too. See if there was anyone there who remembered that far back. But then I lost the angel on our first day here, and I haven’t got round to doing anything except look for that. I feel so terrible about losing it. It’s the last connection I’ve got with my mum.”
Rose brushed the sleet off the face of her torch.
“You must really miss her,” she said.
Phoenix looked away.
“I’m all right,” he muttered. “I’d rather not talk about it, actually. It’s kind of easier that way.”
For a time neither of them spoke.
“I suppose your dad doesn’t know about you reading this letter?” said Rose at last.
“No,” said Phoenix, “he doesn’t. And he’s not about to find out, either.”
Rose glared at him. “Oh, come on! I said I wouldn’t say anything, didn’t I? And do you really think I’m the type to tell tales?”
Phoenix bowed his head. “Of course not. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it to come out like that. Thanks for keeping quiet when you knew I’d been told not to come over here. And – and for rescuing me just now too. It was so hot down there. And it was getting really hard to breathe. I…”
He tailed off,
shuddering at the memory.
“Don’t worry about it,” said Rose quickly. “I’m just glad I saw you out of the window, that’s all.” She flushed. “And it’s me who should be saying sorry, in any case. For not letting you have the attic bedroom, I mean. If you’d told me it had been your mother’s, I would have let you have it, no problem.”
“Ah, but I didn’t tell you, did I?” said Phoenix. “I was way too busy keeping everything a secret.”
He looked up.
“And since you mention it, of course I miss my mum. I miss her like mad. I know it sounds stupid, but sometimes it feels like I’ve lost part of myself – a leg or an arm or something…”
“I don’t think it sounds stupid at all,” said Rose. She held her cousin’s gaze. “You’ve still got your dad, though, haven’t you? I mean, I know he’s always got his nose in a book and everything, but he tries his best.”
Phoenix sighed. “I know he does. And I know I don’t exactly make things easy for him either.”
He gave the bolt a final polish and placed it back alongside its glowing twin.
“Strange, aren’t they?” he said. “What d’you reckon they are?”
“I haven’t a clue,” said Rose. She reached out and touched the bolt she had brought with her from the house. “D’you think they’re both from over here?”
“It would make sense, wouldn’t it?” said Phoenix. “Though goodness knows why that one was hidden under a floorboard in the attic. Maybe it was my mum who put it there. Maybe it was another of her peculiar secrets.”
He gathered up the bolts and hauled himself upright.
“Come on. Let’s go back in case Dad wakes up and starts getting suspicious. I’m going to need a bath, I reckon.”
Rose cast her eyes over her cousin’s earth-caked clothes. “You’ll be having it in the dark,” she said, getting to her feet. “There’s been a power cut over at the house.”
“Why doesn’t that surprise me?” grunted Phoenix. He stepped back from the burrow and turned to leave the mound. “What is it with this place?”
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