Shiverton Hall (6 page)

Neither boy’s body was ever recovered. The fountain was drained, revealing nothing but a slimy stone floor with a few shining coins on it. Lady Flipp babbled about the long, white arm and insisted that the fountain be dug up, as there was sure to be some subterranean river beneath it. Sir Jack would do no such thing – it was inconvenient enough to have lost two sons, but to have a mad wife and a broken fountain was really too much. A doctor took her away, and Sir Jack was left alone.

Naturally, Sir Jack was curious as to what had happened to his two sons, but he had never really summoned anything close to love for them, and since inheriting such a great deal of money, he had worried that having a family to look after would cramp his style. Although he had never actively wished ill on his children, he couldn’t help but think that their unfortunate disappearance was rather a spot of luck. Now he could gamble and drink to his heart’s content.

To his annoyance, Sir Jack found that selling a house the size of Shiverton Hall was much more difficult than he had thought. Instead he rented it, and its contents, and planned to live a life of unbridled luxury in London on the proceeds.

On his last night at the hall, Sir Jack had taken rather a quantity of wine, and decided to go for a final walk around his house. He had sent his valet to London ahead of him, and the house was completely empty now that the cook had been sent home. Sir Jack swayed down the corridors, a bottle of wine and half a bottle of port swilling around in his stomach, peering in at the bedrooms, the furniture all covered in swathes of sheets to keep the dust at bay.

Towards the back of the house, he found a room that he had not yet seen. This was not unusual – the house was extremely large, after all, and Sir Jack had taken very little interest in it – but he was sure he should have remembered this room, for it was splendidly proportioned, with mirrors covering the whole of one wall and windows on another. This mirrored effect made the room appear even more palatial than it already was, as the moonlight bounced from the windows to the walls and back again. As in all the other rooms, the furniture was draped in dust sheets, giving the unsettling impression of a room full of hunched ghosts.

Sir Jack took a swig from his hip flask and lifted the corners of the sheets. He was peeking at an ornate chest of drawers, when he heard a rustle. He looked up sharply, convinced that he had seen one of the sheets move out of the corner of his eye. But all seemed still, and Sir Jack shook his head, assuming that the wine had taken its toll on his senses. As he went back to his nosing, he heard a thudding, like the sound of a man dragging a wooden leg across the floor. Sir Jack whirled around unsteadily to see one of the sheets lurching towards him. With a cry and the confidence that only a very drunk man can summon, he ran at it and whipped the sheet off, ready for a fight and expecting to find an intruder. Only a bookshelf lay beneath the wrapping.

Sir Jack blinked and examined the bookshelf, thinking that perhaps someone had hidden something behind it. Nothing. There was another rustle, a flurry of movement, a flapping of fabric behind him. He turned, slowly this time, and now full of fright. Moving towards him, jerking like stooped and hobbled beggars, were several figures, indistinct beneath the dust sheets. It was as though the furniture had come to life, and Sir Jack, trying to shake himself into sobriety, backed away from them. He glanced over at the door, but a large, oak dresser blocked his escape. The sheets moved closer, encircling him, making creaking, whining sounds that seemed half-wooden, half-human.

Sir Jack screamed and called desperately for help, but the only living thing to hear him was a barn owl, sitting in the tree outside.

When his coachman came to collect Sir Jack the next morning, he was surprised that his master was nowhere to be seen. After ringing the doorbell a dozen times, looking in through the windows and waiting patiently for a few hours, he entered the house. It was very cold, as all of the fires had burned out and a draught whistled down the stairs and into the hall.

The coachman thought he heard something, like the beating of a bird’s wings. He followed the sound to the first floor, down the corridor and into the mirrored room. What he saw was very strange indeed. The enormous room was completely bare except for, in the middle of the room, huddled in a circle like the slabs of Stonehenge, the dust-sheet-swaddled furniture. The sight gave the coachman a little prickle of anxiety; it reminded him somehow of a cluster of veiled mourners at a graveside. He walked towards it, shouldering the furniture aside, his heart beating faster as he neared the centre of the circle.

There on the floor lay Sir Jack, stone dead, ash grey and stuck in a rictus pose of terror; his glassy eyes wide with fear and confusion, his mouth set in a wide, silent scream.

The coachman leaned down to close his master’s eyes out of respect. As he did so, he noticed something glinting at the back of Sir Jack’s throat. Curiosity got the better of the coachman and he tentatively reached into the dry mouth and retrieved it. He turned the object over in his palm, intrigued.

‘Now how on earth did
this
get in
there
?’ he muttered to himself.

It was a tiny, gold key, the kind that would ordinarily be found in the keyhole of a dresser or a cabinet, and Sir Jack had apparently choked to death on it.

George waggled his eyebrows at Arthur. ‘Eh, eh?’ he said. ‘Pretty spooky, right?’

Arthur rolled his eyes. ‘Death by cabinet key. Terrifying. I’d better keep an eye on my desk,’ he said.

George groaned. ‘You’re impossible! When my grandfather told me that one I didn’t sleep for a week!’

‘Sorry to disappoint you!’ Arthur laughed.

‘Well, those two stories are just the beginning – there are plenty more. This place isn’t just cursed, you know. It’s a mecca for ghouls and ghosts.’

‘Uh-huh,’ Arthur yawned.

‘I haven’t even told you what happened when Shiverton was an asylum,’ George said.

‘It’ll have to wait. I’m knackered and I don’t really fancy being late for lessons on my first day.’

‘Fine, fine.’ George sighed, admitting defeat. ‘I’ll see you at breakfast.’

Chapter Five

Arthur squinted at his watch in the moonlight. It was 2 a.m. and he still couldn’t sleep. Now that the lights were out and he was alone, George’s stories crept back to him and he had to admit that he was a little spooked.

There was a creak outside Arthur’s room and he snuggled deeper under his duvet, his ears pricked. There was another creak and what sounded like something shuffling along.
What was that?
Arthur sat up, his heart beating faster.

Something was scratching at his door.

Arthur leapt out of bed, reaching for anything that might serve as a weapon. The only thing suitable was a large, heavy copy of Shakespeare’s
Complete Works
. He stood by the door, the book raised above his head. The brass doorknob began to rattle; Arthur held his breath.

The door opened slowly to reveal three tall, hooded shadows. Before Arthur could act, he felt a rush of icy water hit him square in the face.

The light was turned on to reveal the Forge triplets, shaking with laughter, wearing their school hoodies over their pyjamas, and an empty bucket at their feet.

‘Classic!’ Dan hooted, pointing at a soaking wet and very angry Arthur. ‘You should have seen your face!’

‘And what’s this?’ one of the triplets asked, pulling the book out of Arthur’s hands. ‘Shakespeare? What were you going to do? Bore us to death with one of his poems?’

‘Shut up!’ Arthur growled through gritted teeth. He squeezed his eyes shut, his anger rising like bile in his throat. The freezing water had brought a flash of fear, the sharp sting of memory.

‘I wish I had a camera!’ Dan laughed, wiping a tear from his eye.

‘I said, shut up!’ Arthur shouted, and shoved Dan to the floor. The triplets stopped laughing, and Arthur immediately regretted his action.

‘Oh dear,’ Dan said calmly, getting up and cracking his knuckles. ‘Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear.’

The triplets walked towards Arthur, backing him against the wall. Arthur flinched as Dan raised his fist.

‘WHAT’S GOING ON IN HERE?’ a voice thundered from behind them.

Dan’s fist stopped a millimetre from Arthur’s nose.

Toynbee was standing in Arthur’s doorway, staring at the triplets. ‘Bed. Now,’ he said furiously.

The triplets scarpered, leaving Arthur standing self-consciously, soaked to the skin.

‘Are you all right, Bannister?’ Toynbee asked, his demeanour softening.

‘Yes, sir,’ Arthur replied.

‘I’m afraid some of the boys like to play pranks on our new students. It’s not a practice I encourage.’

‘No, sir.’

‘If you have any more trouble with the Forges, please tell me.’

‘I will, sir.’

‘Good,’ Toynbee replied. ‘Now get some sleep.’

Arthur nodded and his housemaster left.

Luckily, his mother had packed some spare pyjamas for him, and soon Arthur was back in bed, wishing that all of George’s ghouls would appear and scare the living daylights out of the Forge triplets. He had hoped this school would be a fresh start, but he seemed to be right back where he started. He didn’t know what it was about him that invited bullies. He only wished that, as George had predicted, the Forges would grow bored of him – there was no telling what might happen if they didn’t.

The next morning, after finally snatching a few hours’ fretful sleep, Arthur found himself having breakfast with George in a vast, dark room that Count Dracula would not have looked out of place in.

The dining hall at Shiverton was a long, stone room that took up most of the east wing, with vaulted archways along its length. The ceiling was a Gothic masterpiece, with studded stalactites hanging from it, like diseased icicles or octopus tentacles. The impression it gave, at first glance, was that of a spectacular cathedral, but peer a little closer, and the stone carvings and etchings were of a far less godly kind. Horned devils spun around the columns while eerie, cloven-footed imps danced along the walls accompanied by a cornucopia of deformed monsters. Arthur studied a panel near their table that depicted an unnervingly graphic scene of cannibalism.

George noticed his look of surprise. ‘Gross, right? Long-Pitt tried to get rid of all this stuff, but it’s protected apparently – it’s a listed building and all that.’

‘Why would you want to protect
this
?’ Arthur pointed at a grisly picture of a head on a spike.

‘Beats me.’ George shrugged.

As the boys were going over that morning’s timetable, Arthur saw a pretty, round-faced girl with a mess of curly blonde hair bound up behind George. She winked at Arthur, raising a finger to her lips, then put her hands over George’s eyes.

‘Guess who?’ she giggled.

George felt her delicate hands. ‘Hmmm . . .’ he pondered. ‘Hairy, gnarled hands, smelly aroma . . . it must be Penny!’

The girl yelped and flicked George’s ear. ‘Scumbag!’ she cried and plonked herself down next to him. ‘Well,’ she said, nodding her head towards Arthur, ‘are you going to introduce us?’

‘Oh yeah,’ George said. ‘Penny, this is Arthur Bannister. Arthur, this is Penny Pennyworth.’