Skull in the Wood (11 page)

I told myself that I'd go as far as the lighthouse and then turn back. But it was taking ages: the wind was strengthening, and further out to sea I could see a few white caps on the waves. I began to wish I'd stayed in the river – or better still, back in the harbour.

Above the sound of the sea I realised I could hear a high-pitched noise that kept on repeating. My first thought was the sails. I checked them, but they looked OK. The thing is, noises matter at sea. You don't want your boat going wrong. I felt a bit vulnerable all of a sudden.

What's more, the noise was growing louder now – this mournful keening that seemed to spiral higher and higher. I couldn't work out which way it was coming from – only that it was getting closer.

Whistling, I thought suddenly. That's what it was like. A long, melancholy, ghostly whistling, getting louder all the time. My stomach lurched. What if it was curlews? Uncle Jack had said that they were a bad omen for sailors. And here I was, out on the sea on my own. How could I have been so stupid? With rising panic I peered in all directions, searching for the source of the noise, but hoping desperately not to find it.

Then I spotted them. A group of large brown birds, flying low over the water, and heading straight towards the boat. I glimpsed the shape of their bills – slender and curved and very long. Exactly like the skull at the bottom of my bag.

The piercing noise grew louder and shriller. It filled my ears and my head and then the entire sky.

I could make them out more clearly now. They were coming straight for me.
Were
they curlews? I'd no idea if they flew in groups like this. And surely they weren't going to attack? I couldn't believe it. The bills looked like curved swords that could slash through sailcloth – or skin. And I had nothing to defend myself with. I couldn't leave the helm. My fingers gripped the wheel, white to the knuckle. The birds were almost on me and there was nothing I could do.

Then, with just seconds to spare, they swerved upwards – so near that I could feel the rush of their wingbeats on my face. Instinctively I ducked my head and shut my eyes. I sensed more of them flying over me, horribly close. And suddenly I felt a deep raking gash on the top of my head, leaving me so full of pain I nearly fell. I gripped the helm and steadied myself. Then cautiously I opened my eyes and put my hand to my hair. It came back red and wet. But the birds were gone.

I felt dizzy and sweaty, even inside all my layers. They had to be curlews. I couldn't pretend any more. Gabe had been right all along. They were out to get me.

I thought of the curlew skull down below. Did it have something to do with the birds that had just flown over? What if it was calling to them in some weird way that only they could hear? I was trembling. I wanted to run into the cabin, dig the skull out from my bag and throw it into the sea. But I had to stay at the helm. The swell was higher now, and it was taking all my concen tration to keep the sails from flapping too hard and maybe even tearing.

Get a grip
, I told myself.
Come on, Matt. Just get a grip.

Another gust and
Dreamcatcher
heeled over towards the waves. My eyes were full of spray, but in the distance I could see dark clouds building. I clung to the helm and wondered what it would feel like to drown.

14

Tilda

I
t's chaos here. Everyone's going completely mental about Matt. He hasn't turned up in London and Aunty Caroline has been phoning us every five minutes for news. Finally she said she was going to drive to Dartmoor this morning with her boyfriend – she would have come straight down last night, only Dad told her she'd be much better off waiting in London to see if Matt showed up at home. Anyway, she totally insisted on coming today.

I don't remember when she last visited. Ages and ages ago, way before Mum died. She never came to the funeral – according to Dad, she couldn't bear to. Just sent that huge posh bunch of flowers and said
to call her if there was anything she could do – as if. Still, finally coming here would give her a chance to see how much the farm was worth, I suppose.

I didn't know what all the big fuss was about, personally. I mean, Gabe told us last night that Matt had taken the bus off the moor, so it wasn't like he was lost or anything. Gabe gave us a whole load of guff about his stupid harbingers, too.

‘The boy thinks he can be free,' he said, ‘but they won't let him go for long. He'll be back soon enough.'

Dad kind of believed Gabe, at least about city boy coming back soon. He didn't think Matt was in real danger, he just reckoned he was really angry – and mainly with me. But even so, Dad was going bonkers over it. We ended up having a policewoman round last night asking all these questions about Matt's state of mind and stuff. You could see that she didn't really think anything had happened to him – she only came because Aunty Caroline was in such a major panic. It was kind of cool, though, a bit like being in some detective story off the telly.

But it was all a big waste of time. I was sure Matt would be absolutely fine – he'd be staying with some posh friends of his and laughing his head off at us. He was just trying to make a point.

But yes, I felt a bit guilty now. So I supposed it had worked.

I thought I'd better smooth things over with Dad, so after I'd got Kitty her breakfast I went outside to speak to him. He was in the cow field on the other side of the farm track, checking on the calves. Though they're five months old, they still want to suckle and they've started really annoying their mothers now. I opened the gate and went over to him, hoping they might have cheered Dad up. Only it turned out he was still really cross, because he gave me this little talk that had me squirming.

‘I'm sure Matt'll phone this morning,' he said. ‘I'm just praying that Gabe's right and he's hiding out somewhere safe. But you need to do some thinking, young lady. If Matt's back here tonight – and I hope to God he is – you're going to have to be a whole lot nicer to him.'

I tried to object, but Dad wouldn't let me.

‘You know perfectly well that the farm business is nothing to do with him,' he said. ‘So you can't go on resenting the boy. And listen, Tilda, if you're full of blame, it eats away at you. If you're not careful it can end up ruining your life. And it ruins other people's lives, too.'

I looked away. I wasn't going to apologise. Dad wasn't being fair – he hadn't been exactly friendly to Matt either. Anyway, how could I just pretend that everything was all right? What about the farm and what it had meant to Mum? Was Dad giving up on it – and us? Would he just let Aunty Caroline take it all away? My chest tightened with resentment.

‘Tilda's very naughty,' chimed in Kitty, who'd managed to sneak up without being noticed.

‘Shut up, dork,' I said. ‘What's it got to do with you?'

‘Tilda . . .' said Dad, warningly.

‘I hope Matt's back soon,' said Kitty. ‘He can come and see the geese with me. They're all splashing in the pond. They look really funny.'

‘Why don't you jump in and join them, then?' I said.

‘Right, that's it, Tilda,' said Dad. ‘No more pocket money for you for the next two weeks. And you'd better start having a long hard think about how you've been behaving lately.'

He took Kitty off to see the geese. So it was just me and Jez. I went back to the house with her and helped myself to a huge slice of lemon drizzle cake. Jez sat at my feet in the kitchen and put her paw on my knee,
gazing at me with eyes that understood and forgave everything. I stroked her thick black fur, feeling the anger slowly fall away.

Suddenly I had a bad feeling in my stomach. I pushed Jez off and shot upstairs to my room. And guess what? The skull wasn't on my dressing table any more. In all the hoo-hah over Matt, I hadn't noticed. That pig had taken it with him, wherever it was he'd gone. But the skull was mine! It felt like the best thing that had happened to me in a long time.

Matt was going to suffer for this.

15

Matt

M
y fingers were white around the helm. The water ahead was rippling and darkening, and heavy gusts buffeted the sail, swinging it hard to one side. The main flapped viciously. I managed to get control before the boom swung across, but it was a close thing.

I felt my head again. It had stopped bleeding, but it was really sore. I couldn't believe a bird had done that to me. What was causing it all? I was sure Gabe knew, but he wasn't telling. All he'd done was drop obscure hints. And judging by the weird things I'd seen already, whatever came next was going to be pretty bad.

I really didn't want to think about the gabble ratchet. That folk tale Uncle Jack had talked about – the pack of creatures rampaging across the moor – had sounded like a far-fetched story. But after those birds going crazy I wasn't so sure.

What I didn't understand was, why me, why Tilda? OK, we hated each other's guts and Gabe had said the gabbleratchet fed on anger, but that didn't explain much. It certainly didn't explain why a flock of curlews would take it into their tiny little skulls to attack me.

The skull, I thought. That had to be it. I'd disliked it the moment I set eyes on it. There was something vicious about it – and somehow it was making things even worse between me and Tilda. We'd been tearing chunks out of each other ever since we'd found it. This time I was going to get shot of it.

I decided to risk leaving the helm for a minute and turned the boat so that it was side-on to the waves. Then I eased myself down through the companionway into the cabin below and rummaged through my bag. My fingers closed around the box.

It was a bad idea.

The boat bucked violently and a cupboard burst open, spilling stuff all over the floor – tins of beans, cans of drink, plastic bottles. They rolled around at my
feet as the boat rocked and shook and creaked. I could smell diesel beneath the boards and felt a whiff of nausea, a sear of acid at the base of my throat. My stomach started turning cartwheels. I had to get out into the fresh air.

Back on deck, I slumped on the wooden seat and drew in salty breaths, trying desperately to calm down. My neck felt hot and clammy. I unzipped the top of my fleece and held it away from my skin.
Focus on the horizon
, I told myself. I tried, but it kept going up and down, up and down.

I could feel my neck getting hotter. Suddenly I scrambled to the side of the boat and heaved over it. And again. I was vaguely aware of patches of vomit clinging to the outside of the hull. Then I just crashed down on the bottom of the deck, praying for it all to pass.

I must have lain there for ages, just wanting to die. I'd never been seasick before – I'd always prided myself on my strong stomach, in fact. Now I was being punished. I didn't care if I went down with the boat – anything was better than this.

It was the rain that jolted me out of it. First a flurry of cool droplets on my face. Then harder, sharper, colder. Rain drummed on the deck and bounced back
upwards. Slowly I struggled to my knees and stared out at the dark swell. I had to get back to the harbour.

I fought back the seasickness and somehow managed to turn the boat round to face the way I'd come. Keeping busy seemed to help – it took my mind off the horrible up-and-down motion. But heading towards the harbour mouth was a whole lot choppier than it had been on the way out. The tide must have turned, and now I had the wind behind me and the waves coming towards me, bashing hard against the boat. The rain was pounding down as if a whole ocean's worth was falling on deck. I was getting soaked.

I wished I'd put on the waterproofs before setting out, but it was too late for that now. All I could do was keep my course as best I could. Above me the sky was a sheet of steel. I thought of hot soup and Mum's chicken casserole and sticky toffee pudding with custard. Home had never seemed so appealing.

Helming the boat was taking serious concentration. She was tipping to one side, and I had one foot up on the seat to balance. But every buffet from the waves threw me off and it took all my strength to keep returning her to the course. Some of the waves smashed on the side and spray whooshed up into the
boat. My trainers were soaking. My hair was sopping. And most of all, I felt stupid. Stupid for not having prepared properly, and stupid for having thought I could handle her in the first place. This definitely wasn't what I'd bargained for.