Shiverton Hall, the Creeper (19 page)

She dropped her basket with a thud, spilling Mrs Cratch’s leftover pie all over the field. She didn’t care; she ran, her legs tumbling, her heart in her throat and the corn stinging her shins.

Whatever it was ran behind her, close, but she dared not turn to find out how close. She could hear it breathing, a rattling and low hiss.

Rose could see the cottage clearly now, her home, and her old mother sitting by the fire through the window. She gulped in some air to cry out when she felt the fingers snatch at her dress, pulling her back into the darkness.

Before she could scream, a cold, wet hand closed over her mouth.

The last thing Rose saw as the hunched, foul-smelling figure dragged her into the woods was Farmer Bradby’s innocent scarecrow, further down the field, a silly hat on its head and a crooked red smile painted on its face.

‘So it was Lord Shiverton in the field?’ Arthur said with a shudder.

‘The town had always wondered how Rose and the other girls went missing without anyone noticing anything. It seems Lord Shiverton stood in the field, waiting, dressed as a scarecrow and snatched them as they went by. Who would think to be suspicious of a scarecrow?’

‘Who saw it happen?’ Arthur asked.

‘A little beggar boy,’ George replied. ‘He’d followed Rose secretly, hoping that he might snatch the leftover pie.’

‘Why didn’t he do anything? Scream?’

‘Too frightened, I suppose,’ George said. ‘He told the vicar the following day, who transcribed his account, but it seems that he was on Lord Shiverton’s payroll because the transcription was hidden and no one was told about it.’

‘Ugh,’ Arthur shivered. ‘Imagine being chased by a scarecrow.’

‘Pretty grim,’ George agreed.

‘Why can’t we just go to a normal school?’ Arthur sighed.

‘Because,’ George replied, ‘normal is boring.’

Once George had left, Arthur settled into bed, and finally picked up the burned book. He read the ominous warning in the front, and skipped through the pages. Toynbee was right: it didn’t appear to make much sense. It seemed to be a fairy story about a faceless beast, but it was so rambling and strange that Arthur could make neither head nor tail of it. When he reached the middle, he noticed that a couple of the pages had been ripped out; it looked as though the missing pages had been illustrated, as some gold ink remained on the tears at the seam.

Arthur held the book up to the light. He hoped that the writer might have pressed a little too hard with his pen, and that some of the contents of the missing pages might have embossed themselves on the pages beneath. Sure enough, he could just about see an imprint of some letters. He walked over to his desk and took out some tracing paper and a pencil from his art folder. It was a trick he had learned in primary school, when they had made brass rubbings. He placed the tracing paper over the pages, and, holding his pencil at an angle, scribbled over the top. Gradually, a word emerged:

SCRACCHENSHODDEREN

Chapter Eighteen

‘Did you hear about Jake?’ Penny asked Arthur and George as they settled in next to her in the art block.

‘No,’ Arthur said. ‘Is everything all right?’

‘He’s staying at home for the rest of term,’ Penny whispered. ‘His mum wrote a letter to the school.’

‘I wonder what’s up,’ George said. ‘Don’t you think he was acting a bit weird before we left for half-term?’

‘Tell me about it,’ Arthur said. ‘He was like a zombie.’

Cornwall crashed into the classroom. He looked dreadful. Clothes that had been tight when he first arrived now hung off him, and he had deep purple rings around his eyes.

‘Are you all right, sir?’ George asked, as Cornwall crashed into an easel.

‘Do I look all right?’ Cornwall hissed. The class looked up at him in surprise.

Cornwall shook himself out of it, forcing a laugh. ‘Of course I’m all right,’ he said, ruffling George’s hair awkwardly. ‘Never been better.’

The term crept by with all the slowness of a star imploding. The only thing Arthur looked forward to were his visits to Mrs Todd, who always cheered him up with her unspeakably horrible stories. It surprised him that he enjoyed these dark tales so much, given his own past, and wondered whether George’s love of the macabre had finally rubbed off on him.

Penny, Xanthe and Chuk had no luck in discovering any more about Cornwall, in spite of their diligent research.

‘He seems to have just appeared from nowhere,’ Chuk had said frustratedly one Wednesday afternoon. ‘He had his first show in 1999, but before that . . . nothing.’

All the time, Arthur had the sense that he was being followed. It had become so frequent that he was almost used to the sensation.

He had gone to the library one evening to pick out some books about Oscar Wilde. He’d got a B- from Long-Pitt for his last
Dorian Gray
essay, and was determined to do better on the next one. The library was empty, except for Miss Hartley, one of the school librarians. Arthur looked up at the Gainsborough hanging over the fireplace, the Creeper lurking as malevolently as ever in the distance.

He passed his books to Miss Hartley, who smiled up at him. He liked Miss Hartley, who was always kind to everyone, and almost never fined students for handing books in late. She had been blinded in a riding accident a few years before, and it always struck Arthur as something of a tragedy that she could no longer read the books that she checked in and out of the library, although she listened to audio books when the library wasn’t busy. One of her earphones was still in her ear as she processed Arthur’s books.

‘What are you listening to?’ Arthur asked.

‘
Wuthering Heights
,’ Miss Hartley said. ‘It’s one of my favourites. I think Long-Pitt is teaching it next term.’

‘Is it long?’ Arthur asked.

‘Not very,’ Miss Hartley laughed. ‘And it’s very good.’

She scanned the last book through and passed it back to Arthur.

‘Right,’ she said. ‘You have these for a week. Enjoy!’

‘Thanks,’ he said.

‘You’re welcome. Now, what would your friend like to check out?’

Arthur paused.

‘I’m sorry, Miss Hartley, but it’s just me here.’

‘Don’t tease me,’ Miss Hartley said. ‘There’s another boy in here. I know it.’

Arthur looked around him: it was just him and Miss Hartley in the room.

‘He’s standing next to you,’ Miss Hartley added.

Arthur felt his stomach squirm.

‘I promise you,’ he said slowly, ‘there isn’t anyone here.’

Miss Hartley cocked her head. ‘How very strange. I could have sworn . . .’ She listened for a moment.

‘Never mind,’ she sighed. ‘I must be imagining things. Have a nice evening, Arthur.’

‘You too,’ Arthur said hoarsely.

The walk to Mrs Todd’s house the following Wednesday was unbearable. Since the conversation with Miss Hartley, Arthur had felt increasingly haunted. He had barely slept, convinced he could see shadows moving out of the corners, and the prospect of entering the woods, with all their dark hiding places, made him turn white with icy terror. He had asked George to come with him, but he had been unable to get out of his own WAA, and so Arthur was forced to walk through the woods alone.

The relief he felt when he saw Mrs Todd open the door was overwhelming.

‘Come in, Arthur,’ she said. ‘Are you all right? You look dreadful.’

‘I’m all right,’ he replied. ‘I’ve not been sleeping very well, that’s all.’

‘At Shiverton Hall?’ she said. ‘I’m not surprised. I wouldn’t want to sleep there either.’

Arthur smiled weakly as she poured him a cup of tea.

‘I was thinking about that place again yesterday,’ Mrs Todd said bitterly. ‘They should never have turned it into a school.’

‘It wasn’t the best plan in the world,’ Arthur agreed grimly.

‘Long-Pitt, in all her arrogance, thinks she can keep the place safe,’ Mrs Todd said. ‘Madness. Particularly after what happened when she became headmistress. You would have thought that might have taught her a lesson!’

‘What do you mean?’ Arthur asked.

‘The terrible accident – you must have heard of it. But, then, I suppose it was before your time.’

‘I know I’m probably going to regret asking this,’ Arthur said, ‘but what happened?’

The Grimstone Witches

There have always been witches in Grimstone. Or, at least, that is what the people of Grimstone have always believed. The village burned more women than any other place in England, according to the records, and the ones that they didn’t burn they drowned in the river. Most of these women were innocent, accused of witchcraft because they practised homeopathy or because a certain crop had failed that year; often the accusations had no basis whatsoever and simply provided a way for a husband to rid himself of a wife he no longer wanted. But there was one case where even the sceptics had no quibble about the verdict.

The girl was called Ann and she was about ten years old, although no one could be sure of that. She had no last name, for she had no family. One morning she had simply appeared in the village, begging for scraps. She had a cherubic appearance, with curled blonde hair and black eyes that glittered like opals, and for that reason she was soon taken in by the miller and his family, who treated her as one of their own. The Millers already had three children: strapping, healthy boys, who had grown tall and strong on the miller’s bread. But Mrs Miller had always pined for a girl, and it seemed that Ann was the perfect child to fulfil the role. Ann was beautiful, polite and well spoken – surprisingly so for a beggar child. Mrs Miller believed that Ann was a high-born child who had been orphaned, although when pressed, Ann would not verify this. In fact, she would not speak of her past at all.

It was not long after Ann first arrived that the Millers’ eldest child caught a fever. The boy was covered in a rash of purple spots and was tormented by terrible hallucinations, but the physician could not identify the illness, telling the boy’s terrified parents that the only option was to wait.

After a week of the boy’s night terrors, which seemed to be building in frequency and volume, Ann shyly approached Mrs Miller. She said that her grandmother had been an apothecary and had taught her the healing properties of plants. If Mrs Miller so wished, Ann could concoct a tonic that might soothe her son. Mrs Miller and her husband were desperate and quickly agreed for Ann to retrieve the relevant plants from the woods.

Ann returned to the house with handfuls of flowers and weeds, and began work in the Millers’ kitchen, muttering under her breath as she did so.

She made an elixir for the elder Master Miller, and a different one for the younger boys, in order to prevent them from catching the sickness themselves.

The following day the boy’s fever had subsided, and the day after that the rash disappeared. The Millers were overjoyed, and soon word spread of Ann’s healing potions. It was not long before every parent in Grimstone was queueing up at the Millers’ door to buy Ann’s tonic for their children. It was to be taken weekly, Ann instructed them, in order to keep them healthy and immune to disease.

After a few weeks, it became clear that the tonic wasn’t working. The children of Grimstone began to sicken, all of them with the same symptoms. They seemed lethargic, their eyes were glazed and their skin had taken on a greenish hue. Parents turned up at the Millers’ demanding more potions from Ann, but it seemed the more they fed the potions to their children, the sicker they got.

Three children died of this mystery illness, until the physician began to wonder whether Ann’s potion was the cause of the sickness itself. He immediately ordered that all the children stop taking it. Their health gradually improved, and it was then that the physician made the first accusation of witchcraft. Soon, other fingers pointed in Ann’s direction too, and the Millers cast her out of their house.

Ann was ruled a poisoner and a witch, and sentenced to death by burning.

On the day of the burning, the town gathered around the pyre, the parents of the dead children screaming abuse at young Ann as she calmly allowed herself to be tied to the stake. As the fires were lit, a black storm gathered in the sky above her head, and a deluge of rain not seen for a hundred years struck the town. The kindling beneath Ann’s dainty feet fizzled and died.

This was taken as further proof of Ann’s guilt and she was dragged to the river, the crowd baying behind her. They tied her to a heavy wooden chair and threw her into the deepest part to much cheering.

The following morning the town watched as she was hauled out of the water, dripping wet, her head slumped. The chair was placed on the shingle by the river: no one dared approach it.

Ann’s head moved, and the crowd gasped. Slowly, she looked up, water running down her face, and laughed.

The village did not know what to do. Every other witch they had put to death had actually died. A few of the men stayed up in the church that night, guarding Ann, trying to ignore her as she sat giggling in the corner, and debating what they should do with her.