Shiver (9 page)

They wandered blindly for some minutes more, until they found themselves up against a hard object of some kind. A lone tree, unprotected and desolate against the elements. They leaned against it for support and stood still, while the blizzard raged around them. When Samuel next attempted to move his foot, he saw that it had already become encrusted with snow, which had been swept against the side of his leg as if he were some immovable object, like a barn or the outbuildings.

If we’re not careful,
he thought,
we’ll turn into a snowdrift ourselves, covered up for all eternity … like the two children lost in the house
.

Sebastian didn’t say it, but he was very afraid. He knew
enough about the terrain around his home to understand that this could be their last and final resting place … Bitterly, he began to regret his earlier enthusiasm and determination to find the ruined chapel. It had been misplaced confidence, always thinking he knew best. Then he thought sadly of what his family would have to say, when they found out he and Samuel were lost, and had not returned from their foolhardy expedition.
The kitchen at Dunadd was bustling and warm with life. The dogs were crouching under the table, Granny Hughes was cooking so smells wafted deliciously down the passageway, and Mr Hughes was sitting down having a chat with Isabel Cunningham about the heating problem in her studio.

“It’s hard to work in there when it’s so cold.”

“You could rig yourself up a nice little stove. There’s an old one in the barn,” Mr Hughes was telling her. “We could cut a hole in the roof and feed the vent through it.”

“Would that work?”

“Like a treat. You could burn logs and coal in it, heat the place up nicely. Then you’d be warm even when the power’s down.”

Isabel stood up, encouraged by these thoughts. Her plans were looking up every day.

“Well, I’ll let you good people get on then …” and with that she went back to the cottage. At the back of her mind she was wondering where Samuel had gone and what he might like for tea tonight. Something warming like soup perhaps, with the weather closing in? It didn’t occur to her to worry quite yet …

Chris Morton was more than usually agitated.

“What is it, Mum?” Fiona asked.

“It’s odd about the electricity, I keep thinking about it, that’s all,” she admitted, distractedly. “For a minute there the other night, it was doing some really odd things. I’ll call an electrician once the roads are clear again.”

“You’d have thought it would’ve bin back on again by now, that’s for sure,” Granny commented, whisking one of the rabbits off the table. “Put that thing back in its cage,” she instructed Fiona.

Fiona stood up, grabbing the rabbit under its belly. She swept it into an open cage on the worktop and sealed it shut. Then she glanced across the moor at the snowbound hills.

“That’s odd.”

“What is?”

Fiona had noticed lights glimmering through the thickening snowfall, just before the blizzard hit. “The Sheriffmuir Inn must have their power back. I saw their lights earlier.”

Chris Morton came and stood beside her and peered out.

“Really? So, why don’t we?”

“I wonder if Mr MacFarlane’s been affected?” Fiona blurted out before she could stop herself. Her mother shot her a sharp look.

“Well, you’re not going to visit him to find out,” Chris Morton said. “The weather’s closing in again. Look … it’s a virtual white-out out there!”

Granny Hughes agreed. “It’s not good,” she murmured. “All the same,” Granny sighed. “Seems awfy strange.”

She was right, but no one wanted to admit it. It seemed
they were the only ones on Sheriffmuir without power.

Charles chose that moment to wander in from the hallway.

“Where are the other two?” his mother demanded.

He shook his head. “They should be back by now. They went out in the snow.”

“They
what
?” Chris Morton exclaimed, unable quite to believe her ears. “What possessed them?” she cried.

“It was my fault,” Charles stammered. “We … we were looking for something.”

“Yes. Looking for trouble,” she snapped, but fear gripped her chest like a tightening vice.

Charles shook his head. “Fiona and I came back, and they promised they’d …”

“Why on earth did you let them go off on their own?”

“We didn’t think … we thought …”

“Exactly. You didn’t think,” his mother lashed out, in her rising panic.

“Now, now. Let’s not lose our heads,” Mr Hughes said.

“Maybe they’re next door,” Chris Morton muttered, looking out at the gathering maelstrom.

“Shall I go and look?” Fiona offered, getting up from the table.

“No, I’ll go,” Mrs Morton insisted. “You lot stay here.”

Before they could stop her, she had buttoned up her padded jacket and pulled on her boots. From the kitchen window they watched her disappear between the trees, in search of Isabel.

Her fear increased with every footstep. She was beginning to get a bad feeling about this.

Above the clustered rooftops and tower of Dunadd, the snow clouds gathered, swirling endlessly in a confetti storm of white. It would have been pretty, if it wasn’t so lethal; if two boys hadn’t been out in it, lost on the hillside, not knowing which way to turn. How long before it got dark? Would the blizzard lift before then, or would it continue? Sheriffmuir was not a place to be out in after dark, particularly when a storm like this one hit. It was impossible to see more than two metres ahead, other than the shapeless forms of walls and shrubs. And Sebastian and Samuel were out there now, nowhere near the house. They had no landmarks or signposts to help them.

“What is it?” Granny demanded when Chris Morton returned soon after with Isabel. She could tell by the looks on their faces that something was desperately wrong. Isabel had searched the cottage and Chris Morton had stood outside in the blizzard, helplessly calling out the boys’ names. Of course, there had been no response, other than a deafening silence.

“It’s Samuel and Sebastian. They weren’t at the cottage. They haven’t come back.”

Fiona and Charles exchanged worried glances.

“They’re missing.”

Fiona glanced towards her brother guiltily. He lowered his head, reading her thoughts. It was time to tell the truth. Or part of it, anyway. They were frightened of the consequences: of having withheld the truth in the first place, and for their brother and friend, lost out on the moor in the middle of a terrible blizzard.

“We know where they went,” Charles blurted out, his face turning pale as all the adults turned to stare at him.

“What?” Isabel hissed, her voice dangerously quiet, as if she couldn’t quite believe her ears.

“We know where they might have gone.” He began nervously. “They went off in search of a graveyard, for something to do.”

“Graveyard? What graveyard?” Isabel spat, confusion making her angry.

“It was after reading this book at the sleepover. We wanted to see if there really was a plague graveyard on Sheriffmuir, like the book said there was.”

“Book?”

“This book we found …” Fiona explained “… in the library. We were just reading up about it. Charles and I went along too. The weather was fine earlier, no snow or anything. Then Charles and I decided to come home ’cos we thought it was too much for Lucy, and the others… well, they decided to keep looking. We thought they’d be alright. We didn’t think there’d be a blizzard or anything.”

She exchanged nervous glances with her brother. Once again, they had omitted to tell the whole truth. They hadn’t mentioned the ghostly apparition that had pointed them in the direction of the graveyard in the first place.

But they had said enough to terrify the adults into radical action.

Mr Hughes and Chris Morton volunteered to walk to the Inn to raise the alarm, but Isabel insisted that she went instead.

Granny protested. “The weather’s awful. You’ll be lost an’ all. You can’t see a thing out there.” But Mr Hughes reassured her.

“If we stick to the road we can’t go wrong. We’ll just follow the fence along the driveway.”

“You should stay here in case Samuel comes back,” Chris implored Isabel, but Isabel would not hear of it.

“One of us needs to get help and someone has to stay here,” she said practically.

Isabel set off through the snow, accompanied by a faithful Mr Hughes, who endeavoured all the time to reassure her.

Fiona and her brother watched them go with foreboding in their hearts.

Although Sebastian and Samuel had gone in the opposite direction, in search of the ruined chapel, the adults decided that it would be better to get more professional help involved in the search, rather than try and find them themselves.

“That’s our best bet,” Mr Hughes had told them. “We’ll be no use to the boys if we get lost up there ourselves.”

“He’s right,” Granny urged everyone. They stood at the window, looking out in fear.

At the Inn the power was on, but the telephone cables were down. However, the owners managed to get a signal on their mobile and called for help. The police and rescue
services promised to attend, but the road was completely blocked, so this would prove difficult.

The staff at the Inn tried to calm down Isabel with comforting words and offers of sweet tea, but she waived them all aside. All she wanted was her son. Up at the house, Chris Morton was enduring a similar anguish. Both mothers waited … in torment.

The hours ticked by, and Isabel began to entertain the possibility of Samuel being lost on the freezing moor overnight. How would he survive? Periodically, they tried to ring Chris Morton at the house to see if Samuel and Sebastian had turned up there, safe and well, putting an end to the whole unbelievable nightmare; proving that it had all been a silly mistake, after all, but there was still no signal on the mobile. No one answered at the house.

A little later they switched the radio on and Isabel listened in stoical silence to the following report.

“Fears are growing for the safety of two young boys missing on Sheriffmuir since late this afternoon. They were last seen at around lunchtime, but failed to return home after going out to try to find an old graveyard. It is believed that the boys, aged 12 and 13, may have wandered off onto the moor. The alarm was raised when Samuel Cunningham and Sebastian Morton were reported missing by their families early this evening. Efforts to organize a search party have been hampered by the severe weather. A helicopter cannot be sent out at present owing to the white-out conditions and low cloud, severely hampering visibility. Rescuers are hoping that the boys have enough sense to have taken shelter somewhere.”

Isabel leant forward and switched the radio off. She stared into the roaring fire. Mr Hughes sat nervously beside her, trying to offer support.

“It’ll be fine, so it will,” he murmured kindly, patting her hand. “Take a sip of tea now. It’ll do you good.”

Isabel shook her head in silence. Her heart had been gripped by panic at hearing her son’s name mentioned on the radio in that context. A mother’s worst fears had been realized. She couldn’t believe this was happening to her … or to Chris either. What must she be feeling like, back at the house, waiting for news? The two women had never dreamt anything like this would happen when they had sat together in the drawing room the other night, sharing a bottle of wine as they watched the children toast bread in front of the fire. Their lives had been turned upside down in a matter of minutes, as they realized the boys were missing.

The reality of it hit Isabel with terrible force. She had been trying to pretend that none of this was happening, that it was all some elaborate joke, and the boys would suddenly turn up, safe and well; Samuel telling her he’d just been sledging with Sebastian.

But she knew that wasn’t going to happen.

This was no sledging weather.

Meanwhile, back at the house, Fiona and Charles sat upstairs gazing out the window, waiting for the blizzard to lift. But it didn’t. It simply went on swirling, as Sheriffmuir grew darker and darker.

“Maybe one of us should have gone out looking for them?” Fiona said anxiously.

“What good would that do? We’d only get hopelessly lost. We can’t do that to Mum. She’s upset enough as it is.”

“We can’t just sit here and do nothing,” she cried. She was tugging on her hair nervously, a habit she adopted if she was distressed about anything.

“Will you stop doing that?” Charles said.

“What?”

“Your hair?”

“Oh.”

But she kept on doing it all the same. It gave her some kind of comfort.

They were sitting in Charles’s room, up in the tower. Normally, Fiona would never hang around in the boys’ rooms, but this was different. The brother and sister, normally quite distant with each other, were seeking solace in one another’s company. Charles stared at the blank computer screen on his desk. For him, this was where it had
all started, with that stupid ghost story he’d been trying to write.
Shiver
. Could words be so powerful that they could make things happen? That was nonsense and he knew it. Maybe his opening sentence had been more effective than he realized.

“We could try to find out more about the graveyard,” Fiona cried out suddenly, on an impulse. “Find out where exactly it is?”

“What difference would that make? Samuel and Sebastian are lost. We still wouldn’t know where to find them.”

“No, but it would give us a clue.”

But Charles was sunk in gloom and no amount of conjecturing on Fiona’s part could lift his spirits. He blamed himself for letting this happen, for allowing the other two to wander off on their own.

“I knew it was a stupid idea,” he muttered.

“I know,” Fiona comforted him. “But you did try to tell them. It’s not your fault.”

There was a short silence, while the snow built up against the window-panes.

“We could try to find Eliza,” Fiona suddenly suggested, “… get her to tell us where the graveyard is?”

Charles glanced across at his sister. “I suppose it would take our mind off things. There’s no use sitting here, worrying. That’s not going to help anyone, is it?”

“Exactly,” Fiona said.

So, under cover of darkness, they began a search of their own, furiously examining every gloomy corner, corridor and attic of the house they knew so well. They left no stone unturned, no possible avenue unexplored. They would not
give up.

Night had properly fallen. And still Samuel and Sebastian hadn’t returned. The Wharry Burn muttered quietly beneath its blanket of snow and ice. The winter before had been so severe that even the fast-flowing waterfall near Mr MacFarlane’s farmhouse had fallen silent and turned into an ice sculpture. At least temperatures hadn’t dropped quite that far, yet.

There was a possibility the boys could survive the night, if they had found somewhere to shelter. Last year that would not have been remotely possible. No one would have survived a night outside in temperatures of minus twenty degrees. How resourceful were the boys? Their families hoped they were extremely resourceful. But what if one of them had met with an accident? The nagging, worrying thoughts swirled about as pitilessly as the snowstorm itself. It was no use speculating. They simply had to sit and wait and let the emergency services do their job.

No one could sleep. They all sat round the kitchen table, fretting. Isabel had returned with Mr Hughes and was resting in a downstairs room on a makeshift divan. The power had not returned, so they were making do with candles again. Mr Hughes lit fires in some of the major rooms, but they were battling with the cold on all fronts.

As the two families went about their business, lighting fires and dealing with the current state of emergency and the loss of power, Eliza watched from the shadows. She saw Granny tucking Isabel up under a blanket. She saw Charles and
Fiona search the library upstairs, the landing and the attics, probing into places they had never noticed before. She saw them watch and worry and listen for every sound, hoping against hope that it was the boys returning.

She ran along the top landing of the house, a pattering of feather-light footsteps, and laughed to herself. Fiona and Charles heard her – or thought they heard her – and raised their heads briefly.

Nodding at Charles, Fiona stood up and went to investigate.

Her brother followed her and they stood beside the old grandfather clock, staring up into the dark void of the house above, before starting to climb the spiralling staircase.

“Did you hear that noise earlier?” Fiona whispered.

Charles nodded.

Fiona looked resolute. “It was her. I’m sure of it.”

“D’you think the adults heard it?”

Fiona shook her head. “They’re too worked up to notice anything. I’m going to find her. She must know where Samuel and Sebastian are.”

“How do you know?”

“Isn’t it obvious? She told Samuel about the graveyard in the first place … remember? Maybe she can help us by telling us where to look.”

Although they hadn’t realized it, Lucy, Fiona’s favourite Labrador, had followed them up the stairs. They took comfort from this. She had always been an excellent guard dog, warning them of any unseen presence. She would take care of them. With slow but intrepid determination, they mounted the stairs in darkness.

As they reached the upstairs landing, the dog began to
release a low ominous growl. Fiona put her fingers into Lucy’s fur and gently comforted her. “It’s alright, girl. Nothing to worry about.”

She kept her hand on Lucy’s neck and they crept along the deserted corridor.

The house seemed unnaturally quiet. No sign of life anywhere.

Not for the first time it occurred to Fiona that she’d prefer to live in Samuel’s tiny cottage, with its manageable spaces, rather than this great lofty pile with its unopened doors and huge empty rooms. She loved Dunadd, but sometimes it frightened her too.

They encouraged Lucy to accompany them as they approached the drawing room. A floorboard creaked inside the far room.

“What was that?” Charles hissed.

“We know you’re here,” Fiona uttered to the shadows around them. But there was no answering whisper.

The house had always made strange noises in the night, ever since she could remember: radiators ticking – when the power was connected, that is; floorboards and doors creaking; the boiler firing up; mice scuttling about behind the wooden panelling or up in the attic. It was just the normal night-time activity of any old house.

They pushed the door open and crossed the drawing room. Lucy suddenly pulled away from Fiona’s grasp. They heard her claws clicking against the wooden floorboards. The dog stood near the half-open door of the library, ears flattened, body tense and growling.

Fiona and Charles followed her, and slowly pushed the
library door wider. It creaked eerily on its hinges, sending shivers down their spines. Suddenly, they heard another scurry of movement. Eliza stood behind the desk, as if using it as a shield or barrier between herself and them. She stared at them across the room, her eyes bright and fiery … feverish. There was a challenge in those eyes, as if daring them to defy her, to take her on. After all, they were given to thinking the worst of her and she knew it. She didn’t care what they thought now. Let them think what they liked.

Fiona got straight to the point. “Our brother, Sebastian, and Samuel … do you know where they are?”

Charles put a steadying hand on Fiona’s arm, warning her not to antagonize Eliza. It would do no good to upset her.

Eliza put her head on one side, as if she did not understand the question. “Why dost thou ask me that?”

“They went to try and find your grave,” Fiona persisted. “You and your brother’s. They haven’t come home. Where did you send them?”

“I sent them nowhere,” Eliza replied. “Why dost thou accuse me? Thou art very impertinent to say so.”

Fiona stared at the little girl in disbelief, this pathetic but ghostly apparition which hovered before them, causing mischief and yet purporting to be innocent of any crime.

“They could be in trouble,” Fiona cried. “They could be dead.”

Eliza stared back.

“There’s a blizzard out there,” Fiona went on. “If they don’t come home tonight, they may never come home again.”

The little girl’s face had turned serious, realization slowly dawning. “I canst tell thee not where they are. I know not.”

“But you can tell us where the graveyard is?”

“Which one?”

“The one where you were buried … beside the little chapel on the moor. The chapel, which is now a ruin.”

Eliza looked blank. “I know not where we were buried. It is not certain we were buried at all. It is all so confusing in my mind. Thou makest me sad, speaking so …”

The little girl had a way of melting back into the shadows, making herself invisible on a whim.

“Wait. Don’t go,” Fiona begged. “We need to find them. We need you to help us.”

But Eliza had not disappeared. She was beckoning to someone invisible, who lurked near the secret entrance in the fireplace.

“John,” she muttered. “Come out where they can see you.”

“No, I dare not,” a boy’s voice whimpered, so quietly that Fiona and Charles weren’t sure if they had heard him.

“John, wouldst thou have them take you for a coward?” Eliza demanded, more impatiently this time.

“Yes,” came a small voice in reply.

Fiona looked past her into the shadows and gloom of the library, but she could see nothing of a ghost boy, too frightened and nervous to show himself. But she heard his next words clearly.

“Eliza, let us go back to our room.”

“What room?” Fiona demanded, quick as a flash.

“The room they boarded up …” Eliza said, “after we died.”

“How do we get to that room?” Charles asked.

“Thou canst not,” Eliza said simply. “Not unless thou becomst like us. It is on the other side.”

“The other side of what?” Fiona begged.

What terrible secrets did these mysterious ghostly children, forlorn and forgotten, have in their possession? Fiona longed to ask them about it, but part of her was afraid to know the answer.

“Thy mother will have to leave this house,” the girl predicted, staring at Fiona with grim satisfaction. “Tell her, John,” she cried, her voice becoming shrill. “Tell her what will happen.”

“I do not know what will happen, Eliza,” a small disembodied voice whimpered. “I want to go back to bed, to sleep, until the nightmare be over … at last.”

“Why did they board up the room you died in?” Fiona insisted.

“Because they wanted to forget,” Eliza hissed. “They wanted to forget Eliza Morton and her brother, John, because of what happened to us. But we have always been here. Waiting.”

There was a terrible silence, while Fiona and her brother allowed these awful words to sink in.

“Waiting for what?” she asked.

But Eliza refused to answer. She turned and left the room, leading her brother by the hand. For a brief moment, Fiona saw them both as dim outlines. The boy was much smaller than his sister, more vulnerable-looking; his face was peevish and sad.

“You haven’t told us where they are …”

A faint voice replied, “Worry not. It is not their time. They will return.”

Then they were gone.

Eliza and John made their way back to their secret lair: their refuge. The little boy sat down on the dusty floor and began to play with his wooden soldiers again. Cobwebs draped the beds like a shawl to keep the ghosts warm. Ruined books spilled out from the one bookshelf, their leaf-brown pages spotted with mildew and damp, almost unreadable.

John glanced across at his older sister with eyes that were forever mournful.

“I do not feel very well,” he whimpered softly.

Eliza ignored him.

The boy shivered inside his loose cotton shift. Ghosts were not supposed to feel the cold, but John felt it all the time. He remembered how his mother had left him alone so often with Eliza and wished now that she had been around more; that she had comforted him the way he had seen Chris Morton comfort her children in the rooms downstairs. Eliza and he had always been alone. For almost as long as he could remember. There had been a time before, when more people had been around. He recalled it dimly, but the memories were getting fainter and fainter. This is the way it would always remain now. Just he and Eliza, alone in the shadowy gloom of a house that grew more decrepit with age and was filled with echoes from a past that only they could hear.