In the Moors (17 page)

I began to walk. I felt as if I was returning to a place I'd visited long ago. The memories from my journey at the prison were not perfectly accurate, but the general impressions were there. The sun was bright behind its canopy of altostratus, as if trying to burn a hole in the clouds. The previous rain had left large puddles that smelled, as I splashed though them, of iron and rotting weeds. Catkins softly swayed in the slight breeze.

Slowly the cottage came into view. It grew from imagination into memory, from distant miniature into full reality.

The tensing in my stomach surprised me. Every tiny hair that lined my neck and spine was standing to attention. My flesh felt covered with scales. My pace slowed to nothing. The relic of a building stood before me—a country cottage.

I had done something I'd always known was possible but had never quite believed in: I had used my spirit paths to locate an object on the physical plane.

FOURTEEN

There was no doubt
this was Brokeltuft
Cottage, but it was hardly more than the empty husk of the original house. The black paint of the front door was entirely gone. The iron nameplate was missing, the screw holes where it had once lived torn and rotting. It looked as if it might crumble if I touched it. Although
touch it
was the last thing I wanted to do. I looked longingly to where the track led onwards, the path to the north, as Trendle called it in my last journey. In the spring light it looked almost welcoming in comparison to this malevolent dwelling.

“Trendle?”

You found it, Sabbie!

I walked up the short front path. I laid my gloved hand in the centre of the door and pushed. It was not locked or bolted from inside. It screeched over a stone-tiled floor and then stopped. I leaned my shoulder on it, then my back against it, but the gap, just enough for me to get my hand through, would widen no more. I put an eye to the opening. I could see grey light, like a fog that hangs around in abandoned places.

Some time ago, someone had come here with planks and nails and a pot of paint. The downstairs windows had been boarded up and the words
Danger—Keep Out
painted across the boarding. Whatever was in the way of the front door must have been there even at that time, as they hadn't bothered to board that up. I stared at the words for a moment or two, waiting to see how they affected the more rule-abiding side of my nature, then shrugged and traced the path around the side of the house.

I had to scrunch through a wasteland wilderness. Brambles were the predominant feature, but the thorns couldn't get a purchase on my plasticky coat—it was like wearing steel plating. The high swathes of nettles had more success. They seemed to lean forward and deliberately brush the thin sliver of skin that showed between my coat cuffs and my gloves. I stuffed my hands in my pockets and took steady step by steady step. A smell of fungus rose as I walked, as if the pathway had become mouldy with lack of use.

I turned the corner of the house. I was in the back garden. I pushed through the thigh-high weeds until I reached an ancient back door. You could see the plank work in it. This door did not budge at all. It must have been bolted from the inside.

I beat my fists against the wood, then turned and leaned on it, frustrated to the point of tears. I hadn't taken in the rest of the garden; I was too caught up my desire to gain entry to the house. But after a moment or two, I realized that a strong presence was in this place. I stepped out onto what was once the lawn.

At the far corner of the cottage stood a massive tree. Its solid trunk sprouted into powerful branches. I struggled through overgrowth until I could touch its deeply fissured bark, as black as coal tar. The tree was bare of leaves, but from the end of each twig hung long catkins with soft green bells, like unfastened necklaces. Instantly, I knew this was a black poplar. I'm no authority on trees, but Rhiannon frequently used such a tree for its healing qualities. She thought the black poplar was darkly magical but with genuine good intentions, and as I leaned against this one, I felt the truth of that. It had aided Cliff in his greatest time of need. He'd fallen through its branches and escaped from the torment of the Wetland Murderer.

I stared up until my neck cricked. Twenty-three years had passed and the poplar had continued to stretch and grow since the house was abandoned. It was pushing heavily against the wall of the cottage like an undefeated sumo wrestler, and one branch had smashed through an upstairs window and crept over the sill.

I reached up to a low branch, cupping my hands round it and fixing the sole of my boot on the trunk. As a kid, I'd been a champion climber of trees. I was taller now and supposedly stronger, but I soon discovered that my childhood ease among the branches had been replaced with short breath and a locked jaw. I clung to that first branch like death, unable to move, until suddenly the rhythm of climbing came back to me and I was off.

In minutes I was sitting astride the branch that fed through the window. I took a rest while I examined the frame at close quarters. I could see shark teeth triangles of glass still imbedded in brittle putty, and my heart sank. I would have to get rid of them, or climb down again.

I eased forward. The branch shifted as my weight pushed against its narrower end. I felt my seat dislodge. The sensation of ice-cold fear for your life tore through me. I grabbed at twigs to steady myself. The unmown grass was a long way down, and I was a lot heavier than Cliff had been when he'd fallen through these branches.

Centimetre by centimetre, I crawled towards the window until I was close enough to touch it. Pulling the sleeve of my coat down, I grasped the hem so that my fist was covered and bashed at the teeth of glass through this armour. Just once, a vicious point sheared across the back of my hand. The blood oozed, slow but livid red.

The cut was a warning. I wrapped a tissue around the site and eased every single bit of jagged glass out of the crumbling putty before I dipped my head through the frame. The branch held my weight because the windowsill was supporting it. With slow care I lifted my legs into the room. On the inside of the windowsill, the branch quickly bent and drooped, sickly with lack of air and sun. I slid off, landing on the bare floorboards with a yelp.

I was in a small room with a low ceiling. Cobwebs hung like the hammocks of grey ghosts from every cranny. The walls were papered with such heavy-duty Anaglypta that thick layers of grime clung to its moulded swirls. The floor was layered with dust and I was lying in it.

I peered around the room, trying to tap into its essence. All I could feel was the bounding of my pulse. The room was almost empty of furniture. A cane-bottom chair lay on its side, the cane seat ripped and missing in its middle. A single mattress lay in one corner. I stared at the wall a metre above the mattress. Screwed through the dusty wallpaper was a thick metal ring. The sort that's used at country markets to keep bulls from wandering.

I froze through to the core of my body. This had to be the epicentre of Cliff's appalling experience—the place I'd seen in the first journey I'd made. I stepped closer. The ring was made of silver steel and as thick as my finger. It had been driven deep in, but even so, I could see the plaster disturbed around its root. Something or someone—maybe more than one someone—had tried to drag it from its mooring. But each attempt had failed; it was too deeply imbedded. As I put my hand out to it, a slight movement, a rustle in my ear, made me glance at the mattress. Its contents were exploding, wadding and springs spilling out through the torn cover. With escalating revulsion, I realized that some form of rodent had made this bed into a nest.

I ran, powder flying up from the floor as if this was the surface of the moon. I tried not to breathe in or look back, but I felt my skin prickle.

On the upper landing, I stood for a moment. My voice crackled from under-use. “Aidan? Aidan? Are you here?” This would be a terrible place to imprison a small boy, but I had to check it out. The boards creaked beneath my boots, warning me not to trust them. I passed two more bedrooms. Neither contained anything more sinister that a single dead sparrow lying on its back in a corner.

When I reached the top of the stairs, I discovered what had been barring the front door. Most of the treads and banister rails had collapsed through the stairwell and lay in a pile below. The landing stopped dead where the stairs had once began. I stamped my foot in frustration and dust and grit showered through the opening, snow-flaking down to the ground floor.

I could get down there
, I told myself, dropping onto my haunches.

You are kidding
, my saner self replied.

I turned so that I was facing belly-in and slid a leg over the unprotected stairwell. I eased the other after it until I was balancing on my arms. I'd always heard this was the way to fall the distance of one storey. Once you're dangling from the tips of your fingers, your feet are less than a metre from the ground below. But my rib cage was lodged on the rim of the existing floorboards. Allowing my body to slide down so that I would be holding on with outstretched hands seemed an impossibility.

The boards creaked at me in alarm as nails were drawn out of antique holes by my weight. Regardless of my desire to get to the ground floor, I was about to reach it in double-quick time. My coat zip caught on a protruding nail as my grasp slipped. For a couple of seconds I was swaying in midair, like some insect that had flown slap-bang into a web. My coat had protected me in the garden, but now it became a menace. I felt the zip give and remember too late that the dangling arms trick should only be used in case of emergency—fire, that sort of thing—not just because you fancied it. There was a shriek from the ancient wood as a floorboard sprang loose and flew out into the stairwell—the board whose nail I was hanging from. I landed in a heap on the red and black tiles of the hallway and the board tumbled down on top of me.

I groaned feebly, but no one was going to come to my rescue. My knees were smarting, so I rolled up my trouser legs to examine them. They'd taken the brunt of the drop and were raw and stinging. Ah, now it's in circumstances like these that a knowledge of herbalism comes into its own. I took another tissue from my coat pocket, spat on it, and dabbed them better. I checked the scratch on my hand. The blood had stopped oozing, but the cut looked angry. I gave mental thanks to Gloria, who was severe about things like tetanus boosters.

For long minutes, I stayed on the floor—not because I was unable to get up, but because the dread feeling I'd first sensed in the upstairs room had followed me in my descent. Anyone coming close to this place would have felt the sad cloud of melancholy that lay over the cottage. It was no wonder it had never been claimed or resold. Not even knowing why, people had given it a wide berth until it had fallen into complete disrepair.

When I finally overcame the sensations of foreboding that kept me pinned on the floor, I headed towards what was still a recognisable kitchen. Around the hard edge of the grey stone floor stood a kitchen dresser and a grease-coated New World cooker. A ceramic sink was fastened to the wall, but when I tried the taps, no water came from them.

“Hello?” I shouted. “Anyone here?” I felt silly, listening for tiny noises through the drear stillness, but I wasn't going to leave until I'd searched every closet big enough to hold a five-year-old boy.

I heaved back the rusty bolt on the kitchen door and stomped through the overgrowth of garden, grateful to be out of the rank house. I discovered what must have once been an outhouse, but only ivied bricks of fallen walls remained. Reluctantly, I went back into the cottage.

There were two other main rooms downstairs. The back room was as forsaken as the upper storey. The one at the front was lined with rugs, eaten away by rodents and unrecognisable under their weight of dirt. The boarded window cast a grim darkness over everything.

On one wall was a sideboard. On another, a dining table. In the middle of the room was a shabby maroon sofa. I took cautious steps towards the sideboard and kneeled to click open the tiny doors. It was stuffed with filthy plates and cups, the old pale blue type with fluted edges. I breathed in, tasting ancient dust. There was no boy hidden here.

I called out with a sudden urgency. “If you're here—I'm a friend—I'm here to help—try to make a noise!”

Foolish girl
, I thought, sounding uncannily like Gloria.
You are the first person here since they boarded up the windows. All this yelling is pointless.

I got up from my knees and brushed down my jeans. It was time to go, and I was glad.

When I'd called out to Aidan, I'd been hoping for a creak or a tap or a grunt. What I heard was not a noise at all. It was a lifting inside my head, as if I'd just knocked back a couple of double gins. A sort of hushed tinnitus.

“Trendle?” I said and found my voice was unsteady.

Sabbie
, Trendle hissed in my head.
It's okay, Sabbie.

Something was making me tremble like a beaten dog. I stumbled backwards until my shoulders hit the wall. There was a spirit presence in this room. I had no idea what or who was with me here, but I was not alone, and my call had brought them out. The sofa was shimmering as if the room had a heat haze. I couldn't take drag my eyes away. The back of the sofa undulated as if it was a flag in a breeze. The effect was so hypnotic that, without warning, I was walking with Trendle, the trance coming down upon me in a moment of time. I could feel the plaster of the wall behind me, but also the cool air of another world chilling my face. The room was visible as if through a dusky net curtain. There was a muted hum in my head.

“Where are we?” I asked.

“Same place, different plane of existence.” To my horror, Trendle's voice didn't rise above a whisper. “Don't worry. Nothing can hurt us.”

“What? What can't hurt us?” In the dim and flickering light, I saw Trendle beside me now, fully formed and stock-still. His short claws dug deep into the dirty pile of the rug. His fur was standing on end all over his body—my own hair prickled my scalp. I was in the room as it must have once been. A television in the corner fizzed with electrical snow. I kept staring at it, terrified to know what else might be in this previous room.

“You must look,” said Trendle.

“I don't want to look,” I sobbed at him.

My eyes were pulled towards the sofa. The shimmering body of a woman was sitting at one end with her legs crossed. They seemed painfully thin, emerging from under a tight skirt, one stiletto dangling from her toes. I could not make out her features—she was filled with a hard light, like an overexposed photo taken by a trembling hand—but I could see that one arm was stretched along the back of the sofa, and as I followed its length, I realized that a second blurry outline was manifesting, shifting and changing until a fully human form had joined her. This creature had risen into my trance from somewhere indefinably drear and dark. A thickset form, sitting with his legs splayed out as if just coming round from a nap. His face was lean and closely shaved, as was his head, while the woman's hair sprouted wildly from her head, creating a halo in the incandescence about her.