Shiverton Hall, the Creeper (20 page)

There was a well in the woods past the hills, one of the men said, that had dried up a few decades before. He suggested that Ann be thrown into it, and the mouth of the well sealed up. It was decided, and the following day, at the break of dawn, Ann was thrown into the well. She did not struggle or even scream, but muttered under her breath, her skin so burning hot that the men had to wear leather gloves to hold her.

The well was hammered shut with wooden planks and the strongest nails the blacksmith could forge. As the last plank was laid down, the men swore they could hear singing, echoing up from the well’s depths, but as the final nail was hammered in, the sound was sealed inside.

Hundreds of years later, after Shiverton Hall had been built and turned in a school, the new headmistress, Professor Long-Pitt, was walking through the woods when she came across the well. The planks had all but rotted to dust and she pulled the remaining shards away. She had grown up at the hall – her father had been headmaster – and had walked the woods countless times as a girl, but she had never noticed the well.

Her plans for the school included building a kitchen garden, one that the students could tend themselves, and she realised that this clearing would be an ideal spot. The children could use the water from the well whenever the plants needed watering.

During the summer holidays the gardener set to work, and by the time term started, the kitchen garden was ready for the students, who took to it enthusiastically.

It was unfortunate, therefore, that after a few weeks, one of the students who had been in charge of the garden fell ill. Her hands were raw and blistered. The doctor thought at first that she might be allergic to one of the plants, but as the boils began to spread up her arms and around her throat, this seemed increasingly unlikely. After two further students who had been working on the garden started to show symptoms, Long-Pitt closed it up.

The children’s health deteriorated, and they were admitted to hospital. Long-Pitt had the soil tested, but found nothing. It was only when a doctor examined the children for toxins that they discovered what had happened: someone had been poisoning the water supply. Two of the children were saved by this discovery, but it was too late for the youngest, a girl in the first year, who died.

When the well was dredged, they found the ancient skeleton of a girl inside, but how the water had been poisoned remained a mystery.

It was only Long-Pitt who had her suspicions. There had always been witches near Grimstone, after all.

‘I’ve never heard that story before,’ Arthur said.

‘And you won’t hear it,’ Mrs Todd said. ‘Long-Pitt has a knack for covering these things up. You have to be very good at keeping secrets at Shiverton Hall.’

Arthur thought about his own secrets.

‘I’ve never really been Long-Pitt’s biggest fan,’ he said.

‘Wise,’ Mrs Todd said quietly.

‘What was that?’ Arthur asked.

‘Oh, nothing,’ Mrs Todd said. ‘I’m just talking nonsense in my old age. Why don’t you take off early, Arthur? You don’t want to walk through those woods after dark.’

Arthur smiled gratefully and got up. ‘Thanks, Mrs Todd,’ he said.

‘See you next week,’ she replied.

‘I’ve got to do my CCF camping trip next week,’ Arthur said. ‘Sorry, I forgot to say.’

‘Camping?’ Mrs Todd asked. ‘How ghastly! Well, I hope to see you before term finishes at least.’

‘Of course,’ Arthur said.

As he was leaving, Mrs Todd touched his arm.

‘Arthur,’ she said. ‘Be careful.’

Arthur nodded, and left.

Long-Pitt was standing on the path when Arthur turned out of Rose Cottage.

‘Hello again, Arthur,’ she said.

‘Hello, Professor,’ Arthur answered.

He walked past her uneasily, conscious that her eyes were on him. Once he had walked a few steps down the path, he heard her turn away and continue her walk into the woods.

‘Creepy,’ Arthur muttered under his breath, and tried not to think about the skeleton at the bottom of the well, or why it was that Long-Pitt seemed to be waiting for him in the woods again.

Chapter Nineteen

Arthur was an hour early for the school bus. There was a regular bus that went past the Shiverton school gates, which left in ten minutes, so Arthur decided to take that one – he’d have plenty of time to walk from the gates to the hall.

As he waited at the bus stop, he spotted someone he knew across the road.

‘Alan!’ Arthur called. Alan looked up; he was wearing his glittery cape and had added a jewelled turban to complete the outfit. Once Alan saw Arthur, he started to run.

‘Alan!’ Arthur yelled. ‘Wait!’

Arthur ran after him. Luckily Alan was terribly unfit, and after a few minutes he was doubled over and gasping for breath, cape spooled on the ground.

‘I just wanted to talk to you!’ Arthur said.

‘Get away from me,’ Alan replied.

‘What is going on?’ Arthur asked.

‘You tell me!’ Alan choked.

‘What do you mean?’

‘Listen, you,’ Alan said, standing up and prodding Arthur with his finger. ‘I’m not a bloody soothsayer, all right? I’m Mrs Farkin’s nephew. I don’t know anything about that stuff.’

‘Well, that was fairly obvious,’ Arthur admitted.

Alan glared at Arthur. ‘She just pays me to sit in that room and spout a load of rubbish. I bought that crystal ball from a car boot sale in Reading,’ Alan continued.

‘It looks like a paperweight,’ Arthur said.

‘It is a blasted paperweight!’ Alan yelled.

‘OK. So why did you freak out when you read my fortune, then?’ Arthur asked. ‘Is that part of the act?’

‘No,’ Alan hissed. He looked up and down the road to check that no one was coming.

‘When I looked into the glass ball, I saw something,’ Alan said.

‘What did you see?’ Arthur asked.

Alan shook his head.

‘What did you see?’ Arthur repeated.

‘I saw something that couldn’t possibly be,’ Alan said.

‘What?’

‘You, a reflection, I mean . . . only there was someone standing behind you.’

‘Behind me?’

‘At first I thought it was a trick of the light, that you had been reflected in the glass twice. But it wasn’t you. There was a dark figure standing behind you, and its hands were around your neck.’

‘What did it look like?’ Arthur asked, feeling sick.

‘I couldn’t see the face,’ Alan replied.

Arthur squeezed his eyes shut. The pavement slabs were shifting like water beneath his feet.

‘Are you all right?’ Alan asked.

‘I’m fine,’ Arthur said hoarsely. ‘I need to catch my bus, so . . .’

Arthur staggered away, his legs weak.

‘There was something else,’ Alan called after him.

Arthur reluctantly turned back.

‘It was later,’ Alan said, ‘when I was putting the cards away.’

‘Go on,’ Arthur said.

‘I’d pulled out some cards for you before, you remember, but I couldn’t read them. I’ve never been able to read the cards, just make it up.’

‘So?’ Arthur asked.

‘As I was putting them away, I suddenly saw them. Really
saw
them. It was like an optical illusion, when your eyes adjust and suddenly you can see the pattern clearly.’

‘And what did my cards say?’ Arthur said, reluctantly.

Alan looked at his bejewelled hands uncertainly.

‘Please tell me,’ Arthur said. ‘I’d like to know.’

‘Something terrible,’ Alan replied.

‘Something terrible happens to me?’

‘Yes . . . no . . .’ Alan said uneasily. ‘It’s not quite that . . . although that is part of it.’

‘What is it, then?’

Alan looked Arthur directly in the eye. ‘You are going to do something terrible,’ Alan whispered.

Arthur was the only person on the bus. He was pathetically grateful to be alone, as he felt that at any moment he might burst into tears. He couldn’t tell his friends about this, not even George. They did not know about his Shiverton blood, or the burned man, or the book. It was yet another secret that Arthur would have to keep close.

Ever since that day by the reservoir, when he had attacked his tormentors and nearly killed them, Arthur had worried that he was capable of something terrible. It seemed that even Alan, a self-confessed fraud, could see the same thing. It was only a matter of time until others began to fear it too.

The bus stopped in one of the overgrown, country lanes, and a tall, thin boy in a hood loped on and sat down in the front of the bus, side-on to Arthur, who was sitting towards the back.

The fluorescent lights hummed above him, and the bus rumbled on.

Arthur didn’t know whether he was being oversensitive after his conversation with Alan, but the presence of the hooded boy made him uneasy. Arthur could not see his face, his tall body hunched forward and his black hood pulled down. Arthur tried not to look: he would be at the Shiverton gates in a couple of stops. The bus driver was with them; they weren’t alone.

But Arthur felt dreadfully alone. As though he was deep underwater, at the bottom of the reservoir with his hands tied behind his back, or later, at the bottom of the mermaid fountain with the dreadful Amicus phantom dancing gleefully above him.

Without looking up, he knew that the boy was staring at him. Arthur could not resist and his eyes flickered up to meet the boy’s.

He nearly screamed when he saw the face. The skin was as taught and grey as a mask, and it almost glistened in the flickering yellow light. And yet, he thought, unable to drag his eyes away, he seemed to recognise the features.

With a shock he realised where it was that he had seen it: the flyers on Mrs Farnham’s floor. It was the face of the missing boy, Andrew Farnham.

Arthur got up, but the bus stopped suddenly and sent him hurtling on to the floor. When Arthur stood up, the boy was exiting the bus, and the driver had closed the doors behind him.

‘Wait!’ Arthur cried. ‘Wait!’

He ran down the aisle to the driver.

‘Open the doors!’ Arthur said.

‘This your stop, is it?’ the driver said cheerfully. ‘Sorry about that!’

The doors opened and Arthur leaned out of the bus. He looked left and right, but there was no one there, only an empty country road surrounded by dark hills.

‘Which direction did that boy go in?’ Arthur asked the driver.

‘Which boy?’ the driver said.

‘The one who just got off. He was wearing a hoodie,’ Arthur said. ‘We need to find him! He’s the missing boy.’

‘I’m sorry, son,’ the bus driver chuckled. ‘It’s just been you and me on the bus this evening.’

‘What?’ Arthur said. ‘No – he just got off.’

‘I think I would have noticed,’ the bus driver responded. ‘I have to give everyone a ticket.’

‘But why did you stop, then?’ Arthur said. ‘If there wasn’t anyone to let on or off?’

‘Have to,’ the bus driver replied amicably. ‘It’s the rules.’

‘It can’t be right,’ Arthur said. ‘I saw him.’

The driver looked up at Arthur’s tired, haunted face.

‘Why don’t you take a seat, lad?’ he said. ‘You look like you could do with a rest.’

Arthur meekly sat down and glanced outside as they drove off. The bus driver was right; there was no one there. Nothing but the cold, bleak landscape and Arthur’s own tired reflection.

Chapter Twenty

Chuk, Penny and Xanthe peered into the window of the art room, spying on Cornwall, who had been sitting at his desk, speaking anxiously on the phone for twenty minutes. Although they could not hear what he was saying, they could tell from the sweat on his upper lip that it was not good news.

Cornwall ended the call and threw his phone across the room, where it shattered against the wall. He put his face in his hands.

‘Is he crying?’ Penny asked.

‘Looks like it,’ Chuk replied grimly.

Cornwall shook himself, wiped away his tears with the back of his grubby sleeve and got up. He looked around the art block, checking that he was alone, and unlocked the cupboard behind him. He slid out a huge canvas, swaddled in cloth, and began to move it towards the back door.

‘What is that?’ Chuk asked.

‘We need to follow him,’ Penny said.

They ran around the side of the art block and hid behind a tree as they watched Cornwall load the painting into the back of a van.

‘He’s going to get away!’ Xanthe whispered.

‘I’ve got an idea,’ Chuk said. ‘Xanthe, go and distract Cornwall. Penny, come with me.’

‘Wait!’ Xanthe hissed as Chuk and Penny ran off.

Xanthe took a deep breath and stepped out from behind the tree.

‘Sir!’ she called to Cornwall, who jumped at the sound of her voice.