Shiverton Hall, the Creeper (10 page)

The fair was nothing like an ordinary travelling fair. It seemed almost Victorian, with its wooden roller coaster and candlelit fun house. There was no pop music blasting from the rides; instead, an old organ cranked out ancient seaside tunes, and two elderly twin sisters, only a few feet tall and wearing doll’s clothes, sang folk songs about love in a strange, high harmony.

The children of Grimstone adored the fair, and spent all of their pocket money on its heart-shaped tokens, but the adults of the town felt uneasy about it. Although it was terribly pretty, and everyone who worked there seemed very polite, there was something not quite right about it. Something that made them feel as though they were looking at it through one of the fun house’s warped mirrors. After a day or two, some of the villagers approached the mayor about it, and suggested that it might be time for the fair to move on. The mayor would have absolutely none of it, and said huffily that the fair, and its beautiful manageress, could stay for as long as they liked.

The weeks went by, or some thought they were weeks: it was becoming increasingly difficult to tell. Since the fair had come to town, time seemed to have a different texture and feeling, so that it had become impossible to work out whether something had happened a minute, an hour or even a day ago. The children queued up at the booth and bought their tokens and went on the rides and consumed stick after stick of candyfloss. Should they be at school? parents wondered hazily. Or was it still the weekend?

The performances in the striped tent had taken on the quality of dreams, or nightmares. The contortionist knotted himself into impossible positions; the twins knitted closer and closer together until they appeared to fuse into a single, two-headed body; the horses and their acrobatic riders gnashed sharp, fanged teeth; and even Violetta, beautiful and shimmering on her trapeze began to look like a mermaid that had been out of the water too long, puckered and dry as she whirled around the ceiling.

There was dust everywhere too. In the clunking pipes of the organ and between the slats of the roller coaster. And was the candyfloss really candyfloss at all? It looked more like spider’s webs than spun sugar. The parents squeezed their eyes shut, in the hope that things would seem clearer when they reopened them but every time they did, Grimstone seemed stranger than before.

The children were beginning to behave strangely too. They had stopped talking, stopped giggling, or even screaming on the rides. They queued up silently, sucking on their sticks of rock. Even the Shiverton Hall students, who were normally the most rambunctious in the village, had hollow eyes and sallow skin, their grey uniforms fraying slightly at the pockets.

One evening, how many days or weeks or months after the fair came to town, no one was sure, Violetta climbed up to the top of the Ferris wheel, her little, glittering shoes neatly navigating the creaking scaffold. She held up her hands for attention and the fair ground to a halt.

There was to be a special show that evening. A very special man had travelled from far away to visit them all; it was to be the final show before the fair moved to another town.

The town filed into the marquee and sat on the wooden benches. It seemed impossible that the whole of Grimstone could fit into one tent, but the grown-ups had long ago stopped thinking about what was possible and what was not. Once every spot was filled, the strong man sealed the tent and the lights went out.

In the middle of the ring, a single spotlight clunked on.

Within the beam of white light, stood a tiny, wizened man. He wore a suit of deep navy velvet that seemed at least two sizes too big for him and bejewelled, high-heeled shoes. He looked out at the audience and smiled.

Violetta, who had become so wrinkled that she had the appearance of a glittering walnut, staggered out from behind the scenes.

‘The Great Malvolio requires two volunteers,’ she called out hoarsely.

The audience stared back at her, dazed.

Malvolio leaned down and whispered into Violetta’s ear and pointed to a plump boy in the audience.

‘The Great Malvolio has chosen,’ Violetta said, and walked over to the boy, pulling him up by his wrist.

‘Do you like magic tricks, boy?’ she asked.

The boy did not answer. He was as limp and docile as the rest of Grimstone, who looked as though their limbs had been stuffed with sawdust.

The strong man wheeled a magic box into the ring; it was about the size of a coffin and painted with gold and silver stars. Malvolio guided the child into the box.

‘And now for our second volunteer,’ Violetta said. ‘What about a girl this time?’

Another box was wheeled on, this one decorated with flames and shimmering snowflakes.

‘STOP!’

Malvolio looked out at the audience, surprised.

Violetta narrowed her bloodshot eyes. ‘Who said that?’ she hissed, looking out at the constellation of blank faces. ‘Who dares interrupt the Great Malvolio?’

A little girl, a few rows from the back, stood up. She had the look of a sleepwalker who had awoken to find herself standing in the garden in the middle of the night. She blinked towards the lights, confused.

‘I . . . I . . .’ the girl stammered, ‘I think you should . . . stop . . . I don’t like this trick . . . I don’t like this fair.’ The girl’s voice was gaining power as the panic began to rise up in her.

Violetta smiled. ‘How marvellous! Please give our second volunteer a warm hand.’

The strong man walked into the audience and picked up the girl. She struggled and screamed, but the audience simply sat and watched.

Malvolio and the strong man forced the screaming girl into the second magic box and slammed the door shut, buckling the sides with relish. The audience clapped politely.

‘And now,’ Violetta cried, ‘the Great Malvolio will perform his finest trick.’

The twins began to bang a drum as Malvolio and Violetta sank into the darkness at the back of the tent.

In the beam of the spotlight, smoke began to rise out of the seams of the magic boxes and snaked up towards the ceiling. The muffled screams of the girl grew louder as she kicked and clawed at her box, but her cries were drowned out by the sound of the twins’ drum, which was growing to a burning crescendo.

Suddenly the drumming stopped, and the tent was filled with an expectant silence.

Violetta leapt back into the spotlight, as young and glittering and beautiful as she had been when the fair arrived.

‘
Voilà!
’ she called, throwing open the boxes. ‘The Great Malvolio has made your children disappear!’

Indeed, the magic boxes held nothing but thin air. One or two audience members idly noticed the frantic claw marks on the lid of the smaller box, but smiled courteously and applauded the show.

Malvolio reappeared to take his bow. The tiny, old wizard that had stood before them a few moments earlier had transformed into a tall and strapping young man with a grin like an accordion.

‘Thank you, ladies and gentlemen,’ Violetta tinkled, as the boxes were wheeled off. ‘We hope you have enjoyed our little fair. Come back soon.’

The following morning, the town rose, sleepy-eyed and thick-headed, as though they had woken from a thousand-year sleep. One by one they staggered out of their houses into the streets, but the fair was nowhere to be seen – not a single shard of toffee apple or splinter of wood could be found to show that it had ever been in town. People were astonished to see the date on their newspapers and discover that only a day had passed since the fair had arrived. Many began to question whether it was all a mass delusion. A few people blamed the chemical plant a few miles away; perhaps it had poisoned the air?

That was until they heard about the missing children. A boy and a girl. A few townspeople had a nagging recollection . . . a boy and a girl . . . but they could not quite grasp the memory. Others vaguely remembered a glittering spotlight or the shape of a silver moon, but the memory seemed as far away and unreachable as the moon itself.

‘What had happened to them?’ Arthur asked.

Mrs Todd shrugged. ‘What happens to any of the children who go missing from these parts?’

‘What happened to the fair?’ George said.

‘Like all fairs, it moved on,’ Mrs Todd replied. ‘There are folk tales about it but nobody who claims to have seen it can ever remember enough about it. I remember more than most, but, who would believe me?’

‘But why wouldn’t they believe you? If children go missing from every town the fair visits? That’s proof!’ Arthur said.

‘Thousands of children go missing every year, Arthur,’ she said. ‘And no one does a thing. They aren’t all runaways.’

‘Cheerful thought!’ George said.

‘Oh, I’m sorry!’ Mrs Todd said. ‘Look at me, rambling on! You’ve got an hour yet. Why don’t you two nip off early and have a hot chocolate in town? You don’t want to spend all afternoon with a shrivelled prune like me telling old wives’ tales!’

‘I do!’ George said. ‘I mean . . . not that you’re a prune . . . er . . . you’re a very beautiful . . . er . . .’

‘Wrap it up!’ Arthur said under his breath.

‘It’s all right,’ Mrs Todd laughed. ‘I am a prune, and rather a tired one at that. I could do with a rest. You two slip off and the ghastly Long-Pitt will never be any the wiser.’

‘She is the coolest,’ George said, as they wound their way through the woods towards Grimstone. ‘If she was a million years younger . . .’

‘Ha! I thought you’d like her!’

‘Cake, horror stories . . . what’s not to like?’ George said.

The boys walked down Grimstone high street, and were just about to turn into Lily’s Tea Rooms when they spotted two figures scuttling down the street.

‘Wait . . .’ Arthur said. ‘Is that Penny and Xanthe?’

They peered at the hooded figures. It would have been a flawless disguise, were it not for the fact that Xanthe’s beaded pigtails were sticking out from either side of her hood.

‘What are they doing?’ George asked. ‘Shouldn’t they be making moony faces at Chuk back at Shiverton?’

‘Come on,’ Arthur said, pulling his scarf around his face. ‘Let’s follow them.’

The girls hastened down the high street, and turned down one of the little cobbled alleys. Arthur and George tiptoed behind them, with George occasionally swinging into a doorway dramatically.

‘You’re not a spy, George,’ Arthur whispered.

‘I might be one day!’ George said huffily.

The girls approached a thatched cottage. The garden looked as though it needed some attention, the grass was patchy and overgrown, bags of rubbish had been left in the flower beds and old crisp packets were tangled up in the rose bushes.

Penny and Xanthe navigated their way up the path, stepping over rotting food and dog mess. George and Arthur crouched behind the cottage gate and watched as Penny rang the doorbell. The door didn’t open, so she tried again.

‘There’s no one here,’ Penny said to Xanthe. ‘Let’s go.’

‘Who are you looking for?’ Arthur asked, standing up.

Penny and Xanthe jumped.

‘For goodness’ sake! What are you doing following us?’ Penny said.

‘Whose house is this?’ Arthur asked.

‘Hey, I recognise this place from the papers,’ George said suddenly. ‘This is Andrew Farnham’s house.’

‘What? The boy who went missing?’ Arthur said. ‘Why are you . . . ?’

Xanthe shrugged.

‘Wait,’ Arthur said. ‘This doesn’t have anything to do with
The Whisper
, does it? Please tell me that you are not here to interview that kid’s mother?’

‘We –’ Xanthe began.

‘Do you know what it feels like to have papers following you around, trying to pry into your family’s life?’ Arthur asked.

Penny and Xanthe glanced at each other guiltily. After the incident at Arthur’s last school, his family had been in the papers daily.

‘Well, I do! It feels bloody terrible,’ Arthur continued hotly.

Penny looked as though she might burst into tears. Even Xanthe looked a bit embarrassed.

‘Chuk thought that we might be able to find something out,’ Penny explained. ‘The police have no idea what happened and everyone else seems to have given up on it. Chuk suggested that since we’re nearly the same age as Andrew we might notice something other people hadn’t –’

‘And if Chuk told you to set your hair on fire, would you do that too?’ George said.

‘Probably,’ Xanthe admitted. ‘He is incredibly handsome.’

Arthur rolled his eyes.

Suddenly, the front door opened, to reveal Mrs Farnham, barefoot and still wearing the nightdress Arthur had seen her in the week before.

‘Who are you?’ she asked.

‘I’m so sorry, Mrs Farnham,’ Arthur said. ‘We were just going.’

‘No, hold on,’ Xanthe said. ‘Mrs Farnham, we would like to ask you a few questions.’

‘Xanthe!’ Arthur shouted.

Xanthe shut her mouth sulkily.

‘Wait,’ Mrs Farnham said, looking at Arthur. ‘I recognise you. You were the boy who gave me his jacket.’