Gravenhunger (12 page)

Stand up, boy
, whispered the voice.
Stand up and look towards the river
.

Phoenix hauled himself back from the edge of the pit and got to his feet, the shield and coin already forgotten.

Exactly who was speaking to him and why didn’t seem to matter. All he knew was that he had to obey the command.

He turned towards the river. Nearby he could see the silhouette hovering above the surface of the mound, its shimmering form suddenly restless and agitated … but now there was something else too. Something quite different. Burning through the sleet, a pillar of hazy light had appeared as if from nowhere and was shining down just in front of him.

The voice inside the earth whispered to him once more.

What can you see, boy? What can you see on the river?

Phoenix screwed up his eyes in an effort to catch a glimpse of the water far below, but the brightness had all but blinded him.

Come down, boy. Come down and see the riches of the past
…

The light began to move off, dragging across the grass like a giant searchlight and drawing him with it down the side of the mound towards the river.

At the crest of the embankment it halted – and Phoenix with it.

He blinked back the brightness as the pillar of light set off once more and came to rest over the water.

Now he could hear the beating of drums … the clamour of voices … now he could see at last what he had been called to witness.

He scrambled down the embankment, hungry for what lay before him.

But even as he waded into the wild water and felt it sweep him from his feet, the pillar of light began to fade … and the magnificent spectre on the river vanished to nothing.

“Wait for me, Elvira! Wait for me!”

Elvira twisted round on the tree-trunk bridge, gusts of wind ruffling her short black hair.

Her brother was stumbling through the undergrowth towards her, dressed in only a thin blue cotton shirt and shorts and clutching his toy boat
.

“What are you doing?” she cried. “You’re supposed to be in the drawing room playing with your soldiers!”

“I don’t want to play with my stupid soldiers!” Lorenzo shouted back. “I want to play with my boat. Daddy said we could go and sail it.”

“He didn’t mean today! Not with the river practically bursting its banks! He meant on a nice sunny day. And with him there to help you!”

Elvira narrowed her eyes at her little brother. “How did you know where to find me, anyway? You’ve not been over here before, have you?”

Lorenzo shook his head.

“I saw you digging on that hill thing yesterday,” he said. “I watched you from your bedroom window. And then I saw you going outside just now and I thought you might be going back there.”

“You saw me on the mound? You went into my room without my permission?”

“I just wanted to play with you.”

He looked at her proudly.

“I found my way through the forest all by myself. I followed the path you’d made. I ran and ran to catch up with you.”

Elvira sighed.

“Well, you’re just going to have to run and run all the way back again then, aren’t you?” she said. “You can’t come over here. It’s far too dangerous.”

“I don’t care,” said Lorenzo. “I’m not going back to the house. It’s boring there.”

He gazed across the river at his sister.

“I want to come with you. Are you digging for treasure?”

“You heard what I said, Lorenzo! Go back to the house this minute!”

“I’ll tell on you if you don’t let me come. I’ll tell Mum where you’ve been.”

“You wouldn’t dare…”

“Yes I would.”

Elvira stared at her brother for a moment.

“Fine,” she said at last. “If that’s what you want. Stay right there, OK?”

She began to shimmy back along the upturned pine.

Lorenzo waited until his sister was safely across, then darted forward and pressed something into her hand.

“Hold on to my angel for me,” he said. “I don’t want to drop it in the water.”

Elvira groaned.

“Do you really have to carry that thing around with you everywhere you go?” she said.

“Yes,” replied Lorenzo. “Gran gave it to me. It’s my most favourite present in the world. She says it reminded her of me.”

“Some angel you are!” grunted Elvira. “Gran doesn’t know you at all!”

She pushed the silver angel into her pocket, then helped her brother on to the huge pine and circled his waist with one arm.

“OK, you little pest, let’s go. I’ll be behind you all the way.”

Rose burst out of the forest and hurried through the wind and sleet towards the tree-trunk bridge.

She had found nothing they could dig with in the shed – and quite honestly, she was glad. The moment she got back to the mound she was going to persuade Phoenix to see sense. It was time to stop messing about with something they didn’t understand.

What did her cousin expect to gain by stirring up the past like this, anyway?

He was never going to find out exactly what had happened here thirty years ago. The only two people who knew that were both dead. And nothing he did now was going to change that.

In any case, her uncle would be back from the village soon and they needed to start packing. The last thing she wanted to do was get herself into a load of trouble.

Rose clambered on to the massive pine and began to shuffle towards the opposite bank.

Halfway across she stopped.

On the other side of the river, a little way downstream, a dark head was bobbing about in the racing water…

“
Phoenix!
” she screamed. “
Phoenix! What d’you think you’re doing?
”

The head twisted round and a pair of terrified eyes stared briefly back at her before disappearing beneath the foamy scum of the river.

A few seconds later her cousin resurfaced, but even further downstream now, towed ever seaward by some vicious, invisible current.

Rose cast about her wildly for something she could throw him … something she could use to pull him out of the water. A rope would do it … a rope was what she needed, and she’d seen one only a few minutes ago in the shed. But there was no time to go back to the house now. Phoenix wasn’t going to last that long.

She kicked out against one of the remaining side branches of the pine as it chaffed against her leg, then bent down and grabbed hold of it.

Wrenching it free from the trunk, she hauled herself along the bridge, one hand clinging to the slippery bark, the other wielding the shorn-off branch.

“
Hang on in there, Phoenix! Hang on in there! I’m coming!
”

She jumped down on to the bank and blundered through the undergrowth.

“
Get a hold of this!
” she shouted. She sprawled on the ground and thrust the branch over the furious river. “
Grab it and I’ll pull you out!
”

Phoenix floundered towards it, his skin blue with cold.

Twice he nearly grasped it – and twice the water flung him back, eddying and swirling around him in a grey-green maelstrom of froth and spume.

Rose clung to the edge of the bank.

Something lodged inside it was digging into her palm, but she ignored the pain, stretching further and further over the river in an effort to reach her cousin.

Once again he lunged for the branch – and this time his fingers grazed its tip.

“
That’s it, Phoenix! Just a little bit further
…”

One final lurch and he had it in his grip, relief flooding his face.

Prising her hand from the bank, Rose fed the branch back towards her, sensing the weight of her cousin against the pull of the river.

When at last he was close enough, she reached down and dragged him out of the water.

“
What were you playing at?
” she cried. “I leave you alone for five minutes and come back to find you drowning in the river…”

Phoenix said nothing.

He lay there in the undergrowth, shivering and panting…and it was only then, glancing down at her throbbing hand, that Rose saw the marks in her skin.

Whatever was wedged into the bank had punctured her flesh in several places: three holes had been pierced at regular intervals across her palm.

She wiped away the blood and leaned back over the side of the river to see what had caused such deep wounds.

Something was poking out of the mud … something crafted from wood and studded all over with tiny, rusted nails.

Working it free, Rose pulled it out.

In her hand, caked in mud but still perfectly recognizable, was a small toy boat.

12.
THE NAIL HEADS

“I don’t like it here,” said Lorenzo. He glanced up at the blackening sky. “I want to go home. I feel all cold and shivery.”

Elvira twisted round from the hole she was digging in the centre of the mound.

“I’m not surprised you’re cold,” she said. “You’ve hardly done any digging, have you? And I thought you wanted to help.”

Lorenzo scuffed at the ground with his shoes.

“That’s because there’s nothing to find,” he grumbled. “It’s just a stupid hump of earth, that’s all.”

His sister sighed. “Perhaps you’re right,” she said. “But until we’ve dug a bit deeper we won’t know for certain, will we? Who knows – we might be really close to discovering some priceless piece of treasure.”

She peeled off her anorak and threw it to her brother.

“Here. Put this on. It should keep off some of the rain, at least.”

Lorenzo struggled into the anorak and for a few moments there was silence, save for the buffeting of the wind and the rain and the soft scrape of metal against earth.

“Elvira?”

“What is it now?”

“Can we go and sail my boat on the river? I’m sure we can find a bit that isn’t too deep.”

“No!” snapped Elvira. “We can’t! I’ve told you, it’s far too dangerous down there.” She sank her trowel once more into the sandy soil. “You’ve got to be a big boy and keep your side of the bargain, OK? You’ve got to wait until I’m done.”

“But—”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake, Lorenzo! Leave me alone and stop whingeing, will you? You’re driving me mad!”

Lorenzo scowled.

He snatched up his toy boat and started to walk away, dodging a trowelful of earth that his sister had just flung over her shoulder.

As it landed on the growing pile beside the hole, something caught his eye. In amongst the soil and stones was a small circle of bronze-coloured metal, not much bigger than a thumbnail.

Bending down, he picked it up and polished it on his shorts.

It looked like money. A bit different from the coins he kept in his piggy bank – smaller and thinner and sort of wobbly round the edges – but money all the same. It was strange, though. The object in his hand felt warm, almost as if it were alive.

He opened his mouth to call to his sister – then stopped.

A column of milky light had appeared in front of him, and a whispered voice was calling to him from inside the earth … a voice he had never heard before.

Lorenzo looked up into the light, listening to what the voice was telling him and smiling at the unexpected warmth on his upturned face.

The coin slid from his grasp back on to the heap of discarded soil.

And still clutching his toy boat, he began to walk towards the river.

Phoenix propped himself up against the riverbank and took the little boat from Rose.

He scraped off the lumps of earth that clung to its sides and rubbed it on his soaking jeans.

The frame was rotten in places and some of the nails that held it together had worked themselves loose, but the basic shape was clear enough – an open wooden shell, flattened at its base, each end arched upwards in a graceful point.

“D’you think it’s his?” whispered Rose, hugging herself against the cold.

Phoenix nodded. “It must be. It all fits, doesn’t it?”

“So you reckon what Mr Riley said was right, then? That Lorenzo drowned in the river? Oh, Phoenix. I can’t bear it. It’s too horrible to imagine…”

“Maybe he followed my mum through the forest when she came over to the mound,” said Phoenix. “Maybe he was hoping to sail his boat.”

Rose looked at her cousin. “You think he tried to cross the tree-trunk bridge by himself and fell into the river?”

Phoenix considered for a moment.

“I suppose it’s possible,” he said. “But Mum must have been involved in some way, surely? Why else would she have felt so guilty? I reckon it’s more likely the pair of them went across the bridge together and made it as far as the mound.”

He cradled the toy boat in his hands.

“Perhaps she persuaded him to wait for her while she dug. And perhaps he had a bit of a dig around himself. Yes … yes … that would definitely make sense.”

“If you say so,” muttered Rose. “It doesn’t make much sense to me.”

She frowned. “So you think he just got bored and wandered off by himself, do you? And that’s when
the accident happened?”

Phoenix shook his head.

“No,” he said, “I don’t. I know this sounds ridiculous, but I think he touched something he shouldn’t have done. And because of that he got drawn towards the river.” He glanced away, flushing. “Exactly the same way I got drawn towards it just now.”

Rose gaped at her cousin. “You’re saying you were
led
down here?”

Phoenix stared at the little boat and ran his fingers over the nail heads that studded its sides.

He thought back to what the whispering voice had said to him.

Come down, boy. Come down and see the riches of the past
…

“Just after you left me I found an old trowel in the hole we were digging,” he explained. “I’m pretty sure it was what my mother had been using. And when I dug down further I uncovered a bronze coin and a shield studded all over with jewels.”

Rose’s eyes widened.

“I reached out to touch them,” Phoenix continued, “and the next thing I knew there was this weird light shining in front of me and a voice from the earth calling me down to the river. And when I got there I saw…”

He broke off, his fingers clenched round the toy boat.

“You saw what?” breathed Rose.

Phoenix said nothing.

His fingers were moving again, running backwards and forwards over the nail heads as if they were measuring the distance between each tiny point of metal.

“
Come on, Phoenix! Tell me what you
—”

“We’ve got to get back to the mound,” interrupted Phoenix, his eyes flashing with excitement. He started to haul himself up from the riverbank. “Now.”

“But we can’t!” exclaimed Rose. “You’re dripping wet! You’ll freeze to death if you stay out here much longer. And anyway, Mr Riley was right, can’t you see? The garblings aren’t just empty rumour after all. There really is something strange about the mound. I mean, look at what’s just happened to you. You might not be so lucky next time.”

She reached out towards him, but Phoenix pulled away.

Already he was making for the embankment, Lorenzo’s little boat in his hand.

“I have to go back there one more time, Rose. I have to. You see, I think I know what’s underneath it.”

Elvira jumped as a clap of thunder sounded overhead.

“Time to go back, Lorenzo,” she muttered. “Looks like there’s a proper storm brewing.”

Leaving the trowel at the edge of the pit, she straightened up.

“Lorenzo? Did you hear me?”

She looked around her.

Her brother was nowhere to be seen … and nor was his toy boat.

Elvira rushed over to the side of the mound, a cold sickness rising up from the pit of her stomach.

Surely he hadn’t gone off to sail it without her? Not with the river as it was…

“Lorenzo!” she shouted. “Lo-ren-zo!”

She raced towards the river, still crying out his name.

Perhaps he’d got bored with waiting and decided to go back to the house to dry off.

But that would mean crossing the tree-trunk bridge all by himself … and he couldn’t swim…

At the crest of the embankment she skidded to a halt, forcing her eyes downwards to scan the furious watery spew of greys and greens and dirty whites, but there was no sign of her brother.

Was it possible he had made it across OK after all? Might he already be safely home?

Elvira scrambled down the embankment and hurried over to the tree-trunk bridge.

If she had been just a few moments earlier, she might have caught sight of her own blue anorak … scudding down the surface of the river towards the sea beyond.

“Talk to me!” shouted Rose, struggling to catch up with Phoenix as he approached the mound. “Tell me what’s going on!”

She hurried up the slope after him, her shoulders hunched against the driving sleet.

“You still haven’t told me what you saw when the voice drew you towards the river. Was it some sort of a
vision
you were having?”

Phoenix didn’t answer.

He clambered to the top, then stopped abruptly.

“What’s the matter?” asked Rose, hauling herself up the last stretch. “Oh, come on, Phoenix. Don’t tell me you’re still surprised to see that silhouette thing hanging around up here.” She came to stand beside him, panting. “I told you, it’s—”

“No,” interrupted Phoenix. “It’s not the silhouette. I mean, I can see it and everything. But it’s not that.” He leaned his head to one side. “Listen, Rose. Stop talking for a moment and listen.”

A low rumbling was coming from deep beneath them … and round the edge of the mound a series of tiny hollows was starting to sink into the ground.

“What’s happening?” cried Rose.

Beside her, Phoenix was standing very still, his eyes glued to the trembling earth.

He pointed towards the hollows.

“They’re making a pattern, see? There…and there … and there … a sort of stretched-out oval shape.”

Rose stared about her.

The mound was a mass of hollows, stretching all the way round its summit and meeting in a tip at each end, the pattern interrupted only by the burrow Phoenix had fallen into the previous night.

She grabbed her cousin’s arm.

“I don’t like this,” she said. “It’s as if someone doesn’t want us here. Let’s get out of—”

Phoenix held up his hand to silence her.

“Wait!” he said. “We’ll go in a minute, I promise. But first I need to show you something.”

“
Phoenix
…”

“Watch me, Rose. Just watch me…”

Edging towards the nearby burrow, Phoenix pulled one of the glowing iron bolts out of his jeans pocket and dropped it neatly inside.