Gravenhunger (7 page)

A minute later there was a knock at the bedroom door.

“Who is it?” called Phoenix, jumping to his feet.

He scowled as his cousin’s head appeared round the side of the door.

“Oh,” he said. “It’s you. What d’you want?”

Rose blushed. “I was wondering whether you wanted to do something together. You know, to help pass the time.”

“Like what exactly?” said Phoenix suspiciously.

“I don’t know. It’s too wet to go out on the bikes. But we could play a board game if you like. Let’s face it, there’s not much else to do around here, is there?”

“Are you saying you don’t like this house? Are you saying there’s something wrong with it?”

“
Something wrong with it?
Oh, come off it! This has got to be about the coldest, dampest, most miserable place I’ve ever been to in my life. If we left tomorrow it wouldn’t be a moment too soon.”

Phoenix bristled. “You should count yourself lucky you were invited down here at all. You wouldn’t have gone anywhere this summer otherwise, would you?”

Rose shrugged. “Probably not. But anything would have been better than this.”

“Well, it’s not my problem you’re bored,” said Phoenix, crossing the room towards her. “It wasn’t
my
idea for you to come. I would have much preferred it if it had just been me and Dad.”

And before his cousin could open her mouth to reply, he had shut the door firmly in her face.

Rose stood on the landing, her heart thumping against her chest.

So much for a truce. Phoenix had to be about the touchiest person she’d ever met.

Rummaging in her jeans pocket, she pulled out her phone. If only she could contact her parents, then perhaps they might agree to let her come home. Especially if they knew things were as bad as this.

But it was the same here as in every other room she’d tried – the little bars at the top of the screen steadfastly refused to spring to life.

She trailed downstairs.

In the hallway everything was quiet. The door to the drawing room was open, but there was no one about. The chimney sweep must have gone home, and her uncle was probably still working.

Rose opened the front door and stood under the old hurricane lamp, listening to the rain pounding on the driveway and scowling down at her mobile.

Still nothing.

At this rate she’d have to cadge a lift with Uncle Joel next time he went into the village and find a phone box. There had to be
some
way of getting through to Mum and Dad.

She turned to go back inside, then stopped.

In amongst the hammering of the rain and the screeching of the wind, she could hear a creaking
noise coming from the forest to the left of the manor.

Pulling up the hood of her fleece, she set off round the side of the house and plunged into the thickly clustered pines, grateful for their canopy of evergreen.

The noise was getting louder and clearer now … and not far off something was visible between the trees.

Another few steps and she was standing right in front of it – a small grey building emblazoned with a cross … a chapel hidden amongst the pines, its door creaking back and forth in the wind.

Rose picked her way towards it, eyeing the clusters of moss-encrusted gravestones around her. When she reached the chapel door, she pulled the iron latch towards her and stepped inside.

She stood quite still in the darkness, breathing in the musty scent and staring up at the single
stained-glass
window, a circular mosaic of greens and reds and blues and golds.

Slowly, her eyes adjusted to the gloom.

The tiny chapel was lined with wooden pews, each one boxed in with a little door of its own. At the top of the nave stood a plain stone font, and beyond the pulpit lay a pair of alabaster tombs – some
long-dead
lord and lady of the manor probably, their hands clasped in death.

Rose jumped as a violent gust of wind slammed the door behind her.

She steadied herself against a nearby pew, then raised her eyes to where, just a short distance up the nave, a small, modern-looking bronze plaque glinted on the whitewashed wall.

Tiptoeing across the floor, she craned forward and scanned the stark black lettering.

Rose turned and hurried back down the nave.

She pushed her way out into the open and huddled into her fleece.

But it wasn’t the cold that was making her shiver.

7.
UNDER THE FLOORBOARD

Phoenix peered through the gap in the banisters.

If only Dad would hurry up and go to bed.

This had to be about the sixth time he had crept up to the second-floor landing, and still the line of light under his father’s bedroom door was as bright as ever.

He skulked back down the stairs and returned to his room.

The silver angel had to be out there somewhere, it just
had
to be. He hadn’t looked in the right place yet, that was all. He needed to revert to his original plan and retrace his steps one by one. Work his way round to the back of the house, past the swings at the bottom of the garden and out into the forest.

But he had to do it soon … he had to find the angel tonight. Dad was losing patience with
Gravenhunger Manor, that much was obvious, and the rate things were going they might not be here much longer.

He slumped down on the edge of the four-poster bed and buried his head in his hands.

What a mess he’d made of everything. He was supposed to be getting to the bottom of his mother’s terrible secret, and so far all he’d managed to do was lose his last connection with her. Things couldn’t have turned out any worse if he’d tried.

And then there was Rose. He hadn’t exactly got off to a flying start with her either. What had got into him earlier, biting her head off like that, when all she’d done was ask him if he wanted to hang out with her? It was hardly reasonable behaviour.

Well, tomorrow would be different. Tomorrow he would try and be pleasant to Rose – and what was more, if he’d found the angel by then, he would get his act together and discover what had happened here. Whatever it took, he would unlock the door to his mother’s mysterious past.

Phoenix stood up from the bed.

Maybe he should just take a chance. Sneak off outside while his father was still awake. After all, it wasn’t very likely he was going to come down and check on him, was it? He’d never exactly been the saying-goodnight sort.

But then again, what if he
did
come down? What if he chose tonight to break the habit of a lifetime and knocked on the door only to find the room empty? There’d be hell to pay then. And there’d be questions too. Lots of them. Questions which he didn’t feel in the least like answering.

Footsteps sounded on the landing above and Phoenix dived into bed, pulling the covers up over his head.

He could hear the bathroom door opening … a tap being turned on and off … then the door re-opening and footsteps padding back across the landing.

Perhaps this time he was in luck.

He lay there for a while in the darkness, his eyes wide open, then relaxed as a rhythmic snore began to resonate through the floorboards.

At last! It sounded like Dad was well away, and luckily he had always been a heavy sleeper.

Phoenix scrambled out of bed and switched on the bedside lamp. He pulled his clothes on over his pyjamas and put on his waterproof.

Then he rolled up a spare blanket and pushed it down under the covers, prodding it into position until it was roughly human in shape.

Just in case
, he thought, picking up his torch and flicking off the lamp.
Just in case
.

Every time Rose closed her eyes she was back in the little chapel in the forest, staring at the words on the bronze plaque until they were burned like scars into her brain:
In memory of our angel, lost but not forgotten
.

She pressed her face into the pillow and shuddered.

It was the angel bit that did it. A word like that had to refer to a child, surely? But why not call the child by its name? And why were there no dates on the inscription? It was so bare. So empty-looking.

Outside the wind raged and the rain rattled like gunfire against the glass. It seemed the storm was working itself up into a frenzy.

Rose sat up. She might just as well get out of bed and have a look. Anything to take her mind off those creepy words.

She padded over to the window and pulled back the curtains, then blinked.

Zigzagging across the garden was the beam of a torch…

Squinting down, she watched the narrow shaft of light sweep in silent strokes over the drenched grass.

What was Phoenix playing at? What on earth could be so important that he needed to go out there in the dead of night?

The torchbeam circled the pair of swings at the far end of the garden before moving off once more. There was the occasional morse-like flash as her cousin picked his way through the trees on the outskirts of the forest … and then he was swallowed up into the beckoning arms of the pines, and all she could see was darkness.

Whatever he did, he mustn’t give up.

True, he’d nearly reached the end of the forest and hadn’t found the silver angel yet. But there was still the last bit of woodland left to check … and then the undergrowth on either side of the river and the stretch of land beyond.

Phoenix paused for a moment, rubbing his eyes.

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.