The Piper (14 page)

‘But …’

‘Go on, boy. Can’t you see I’m restin’?’

Peter muttered something under his breath and got to his feet. He trudged towards the lake, but his mind was elsewhere. He was thinking about Daisy and telling himself that he needed to get to her, to make sure she was all right. He tried to assure himself that nothing could happen to her before nightfall, that the bad things didn’t seem to happen until darkness had fallen; and besides, the curse wasn’t meant for her but for Miss Sally. And yet …

He got to the sheep and grabbed a couple of handfuls of wool on its back, then began to tug at the creature, trying to pull it back from the water’s edge, but the wool just came away in clumps. The sheep stood there, bleating stupidly for a moment, then managed to raise one foot with a squelching sound. Now Peter put his arms around the creature’s neck and pulled harder, grunting with the effort. The sheep got another foot free and began to scramble away from the water, heading back towards her companions.

Peter straightened up. In the same instant, something moved in the water to his left, splashing the surface and Peter looked down, expecting to see the silvery flash of a fish in the shallows, but whatever was moving there was way too big to be a fish. Puzzled, he moved a step closer, placing his feet with care, mindful of getting himself bogged down like the sheep. He glanced back guiltily, but Adam was still stretched out on his coat, paying him no heed. Peter returned his gaze to the lake and a chill went through him as he registered something pale in the water, a white oval just below the surface, not in the shallows, but further off where the bottom dropped steeply away into darkness.

A face was staring blankly up at the sky, a girl’s face, but horribly wasted and shrivelled, as though bleached by the water. There was an impression of strands of dark hair swaying around the head like an unspeakable halo. Peter’s first thought was that he was looking at something dead, but then the head turned slightly to one side and the eyes gazed up at him, regarding him with a horrible intensity.

He saw all this for a fraction of a second, no more, and then there was another swirl and the face was gone, swallowed whole by those dark depths. That was when fear jolted in Peter’s chest, snatching his breath away and pushing him back from the water’s edge as surely as an out-thrust hand to his chest. He turned and hurried back to Adam, trying to control his breathing, telling himself that he was imagining things, he had to be, but knowing at the same time that he had seen
something
in the water, something that had no right to be there.

He reached Adam and stood over him, gazing down at him in disgust. Then he directed another fierce kick against the sleeping man’s foot. Adam jolted awake with a curse and sat up, staring at Peter indignantly.

‘What’s got into you?’ he cried.

‘I’m going,’ said Peter. ‘I’m heading back to the Grange.’

‘What do you mean? You can’t just up and go when you
feel
like it.’

‘Try and stop me,’ cried Peter. He leaned over, grabbed his knapsack and swung it across his shoulder. Then he began to stride back in the direction from which he thought he’d come, but everywhere looked exactly the same, endless stretches of flat green marsh dotted with hundreds of white, woolly shapes. He kept going though, telling himself that he would find his way somehow.

After a few moments, he heard Adam’s footsteps thudding on the ground behind him. ‘Hey, ’old on a minute. What’s the big hurry?’

Peter gritted his teeth, but slowed his pace a little to allow Adam to catch up with him. The old man was gasping for breath when he fell in beside Peter. He’d pulled on his coat and picked up his own knapsack before following.

‘You can’t just go … charging off like that,’ he protested. ‘You ain’t even … goin’ the right way. A greenhorn like you, you could wander into a bog and drown yourself. What would I tell Mr Sheldon then?’

Peter sneered. ‘I’d say that would be very handy for you all,’ he muttered. ‘Then I’d be out of the way and you’d have Daisy all to yourselves.’

Adam gave a derisive laugh. ‘What are you talkin’ about? I reckon you’ve been out in the sun too long. You’re beginning to ramble.’

‘Are you going to show me the way back or not?’ snapped Peter.

‘Just ’old yer ’orses a minute. I’ll get you back, but we’ve a job to do first. You … you want to send that postcard, don’t you? You’ve been nagging Mrs B about it for days. We can head back through Hythe and drop the card off on the way. If we don’t take it now, Lord knows when we’ll get another chance. You … need to let your parents know that everything is all right, don’t you?’

Peter narrowed his eyes. He wanted to send the postcard, of course he did, but he couldn’t help feeling that the cheery little note he and Daisy had put together for Mum would be nothing short of a lie.

Beside the return address, they had written:

Dear Mum
,

How are you? We’re keeping well. Romney Marsh is very big and green. Have you heard anything from Dad? We are looking forward to this war being over, so we can come home to you.

Love from Daisy and Peter

‘I do want to send it,’ he said. ‘Mum must be going mad with worry. But … it’s
not
all right here, is it? There’s something going on. Something you don’t want to tell me about.’

‘I … I can’t, lad. I don’t even know what I think myself any more!’

‘
I
know I just saw something in the lake over there.’

‘Something in the lake?’ Adam looked puzzled. ‘Like what?’

‘A face. Looking at me.’ Peter realised how ridiculous that sounded, but no words could have conveyed the horror of what had stared at him from the shallows. ‘Some kind of ghost,’ he added. ‘Somebody drowned.’ He thought for a moment about what he’d read in the professor’s book. ‘Sybil,’ he said, remembering. ‘Sibyl Sheldon.’

‘In daylight?’ Adam looked worried. ‘You don’t normally see things in the daytime. I’ve only ever seen them after dark.’

‘So you admit there is something?’

Adam shrugged his shoulders and sighed. ‘Oh aye, what’s the use in pretending? The Marsh is haunted all right. Always has been. There’s stories about this area would turn your hair white. And I’ve seen things out here at night.’ His eyes got big and round as though he could see them now. ‘Things I couldn’t explain. Things that scared me near witless. That’s why none of us wants to be out after dark. But … ghosts is one thing. All that stuff about the Sheldon Curse … that’s just nonsense, that is, made up by people with too much time on their ’ands.’

‘But what about the music?’

Adam shrugged. ‘I ain’t never ’eard no music,’ he said. ‘Miss Sally hears it all right and I know you and Daisy heard it that first time we was out here. And I’m not saying that any of you are crazy, but … ghosts is ghosts, Peter. They’re just … bad memories. It’s not as if they can ’urt anybody.’

‘You really believe that? After everything that’s happened? All those deaths in the Sheldon Family?’

‘Oh, that’s just coincidence! I tried telling Mrs B that, but she wouldn’t have it. She said the bad times was coming back.’ He shook his head. ‘She and Mr Sheldon, they’ve been thinking like this ever since his wife died. But it was just a terrible accident, nothing more. Sheer bad luck. I told ’em, there’s no curse, that’s all stuff and nonsense. But would they listen to me?’

‘I think there
is
a curse,’ said Peter grimly. ‘Tonight is the seventh of September and Miss Sally is eight years old, so …’

Adam groaned. ‘It’s that damned professor, isn’t it? He’s got you believing his nonsense.’

‘It’s not nonsense, Adam. It’s all there in his book. The dates, the names, everything.’

‘His book? When did you read that?’

‘Never mind. It’s all there in black and white. I think Mrs Beesley is planning something and … well, it looks like you’re helping her.’

Adam shook his head. ‘You’ve got to understand something, Peter. It’s not me, it’s
them
. I have to do what they tell me. Mrs B said if I didn’t play along, they’d turf me out. I’m an old man, that stable is all I’ve got in the world. What would I do if they fired me?’

Peter looked at him and tried to be sympathetic. ‘They don’t own you,’ he said. ‘They can’t make you do things you don’t want to do.’

‘I wouldn’t be so sure.’ Adam gave a long sigh. ‘Look,’ he said. ‘It’s true Mrs B wanted you out of the way today… but not for the reasons you think.’

‘Oh no?’

‘No! She told me she just wanted them two girls to have a bit of time on their own, so they could really make friends.’

‘You believe that?’ said Peter. ‘Oh, come on, Adam. And it just so happens she wants me out of the way tonight – the seventh of September?’

Adam laughed. ‘That don’t mean nothin’. No harm is going to come to Miss Sally, not when they keep her in that room, night and day. You’ll see, tonight will come and go and they’ll see what nonsense it was. And won’t they feel like a pair of chumps then?’

‘It’s not Miss Sally I’m worried about,’ said Peter. ‘It’s Daisy. I … keep thinking something bad is going to happen to her.’

‘But ’ow could it? Even if you believed any of that nonsense, she isn’t even a Sheldon, is she? So how could
she
be in any danger?’

‘It’s just this feeling I have … that they’re planning to hurt her in some way.’

Adam considered this for a moment.

‘Look, come with me to Hythe,’ he said. ‘We’ll post that card to your mother. We’ll head back to the Grange from there. How does that suit you?’

‘If you’re playing for time,’ Peter warned him. ‘I’ll …’

‘Don’t be daft. I told you I’ll get you back, and I will. You needn’t worry on that score.’

Peter scowled. ‘You promise?’

Adam looked shifty. ‘I’ll get you back,’ he repeated.

‘By nightfall?’ added Peter.

‘Yes, yes, whatever you want.’ He looked nervously around. ‘I’ve no great wish to be out here after dark, anyway,’ he said.

‘I thought you said ghosts couldn’t hurt you?’

‘No, but they can still scare me.’

‘All right then,’ said Peter. ‘We’ll go to Hythe. Just long enough to post that card.’ He looked around. ‘I suppose you’d better lead the way.’

Adam angled sharply to his left and moved through the herd of sheep, making them scatter before him. Peter had no option but to follow. He glanced at the sky and saw that the sun was already beginning its slow journey down towards the western horizon. He tried not to think about what he had just seen in the green waters of the lake, rising up like a premonition. He wondered if this place was turning him mad, making him see things that weren’t really there. He almost wished that were the case. Part of him just wanted to run, run in whichever direction he thought might take him back to his sister, but he made himself place one foot in front of the other as he and Adam made their way across the seemingly endless stretches of the Marsh.

Hythe turned out to be a pretty little town, but Peter was in no mood to appreciate its picturesque charms. Adam led the way along narrow winding streets, cutting back and forth between ranks of white-painted cottages, clearly knowing exactly where he was headed. They called first at the small post office, where Peter handed the stamped postcard across to a stern-looking woman behind the counter, who assured him it would go in the first post the following morning. He and Adam emerged into the afternoon sunlight and started a slow climb uphill. Peter clumped glumly along behind Adam, his apprehension mounting by the minute. As the time passed, he was growing more and more agitated.

‘Why are we still here?’ he asked. ‘We’ve posted the card.’

Adam looked as though he was regretting ever having taken Peter out.

‘I’ve just got a quick errand to run before we head back. I won’t be long.’

‘Please hurry. I’m worried about Daisy.’

Adam snorted. ‘She’ll be fine. I told you, she’s in no danger.’

They turned a corner and found themselves outside a tumbledown old building with black and white timbered walls. A sign hanging above the door announced that this was the
Smuggler’s Retreat.
The sign featured a painting of an old sailing ship that had foundered on rocks. In the foreground, a shifty-looking man with an eye patch and a tricorn hat held a lantern. Adam nodded towards the closed wooden door.

‘I got to pop in ’ere for a bit,’ he said. ‘You wait, I won’t be long.’

‘It’s a
pub
,’ said Peter suspiciously.

‘You don’t say?’ Adam gave him a wide-eyed look. ‘I need to talk to the landlord, that’s all.’

‘What about?’

‘Never you mind, “what about”! I got a bit of business with ’im, ain’t I? Now I already told you, I won’t be long. You just wait ’ere for me.’

‘Can’t I come in?’ asked Peter.

‘No,’ said Adam firmly. ‘Youngsters ain’t allowed in there. You just cool yer ’eels for a bit.’

‘And then we’ll head straight back to the Grange?’

‘Yes, yes, just as you say! Lord, you’re worse than Mrs B, you are.’ Adam went to the door of the pub and pushed it open. Peter glimpsed a press of shadowy figures inside and the smell of stale beer belched out onto the street, making him wrinkle his nose. Adam stepped inside and the door slammed shut again.

Peter stood there for a few moments, staring at it blankly, wondering what he was supposed to do now. He turned and looked around, searching for something to occupy him. The street was deserted. Up at the top of the hill, he could see the entrance to a church. It looked like a church from a storybook, he thought, a big old building of grey stone with a square tower at one end and turrets sticking up from each corner. In front of it there was a wooden sign and printed on it in ornate golden letters were the words PARISH CHURCH OF ST LEONARD.

This immediately rang a bell in Peter’s head. He’d seen that name recently but for a moment he couldn’t think where. Then it came to him. He reached into his knapsack and took out Professor Lowell’s book. He found the chapter he’d been reading earlier. Searching through it, he soon found what he was looking for.