The Hunting Ground (13 page)

‘Ask a question,’ Ben said to him. ‘Then I’ll come with you.’

‘My name’s Elliott.’ Elliott looked straight at Eve. ‘And this is my brother.’ Eve giggled. ‘We’re a family who moved in recently, and—’

‘This is Katerina,’ Eve interrupted him. ‘She can’t talk. She can only do this.’ Eve made Katerina curtsey.

‘What about your own brother?’ Elliott said, seeing an opportunity. ‘What about Theo?’ He kept his tone light. ‘And your Mum and Dad? Where are they? What happened to them?’

‘Oh, I don’t know,’ Eve said, looking disinterested. Then she gave Elliott a crafty smile. ‘Yes, I do! I
do
know! I do!’

She retreated to the staircase. ‘Come and find out,’ she said. ‘Come and I’ll show you.’

‘Follow her,’ Ben whispered.

Elliott did so warily, but only as far as the landing. ‘No,’ he said. ‘We’re not going any further.’

Eve glanced uncertainly up at one of the portraits of Cullayn on the wall, then retreated a few more steps. Ben attempted to follow, but Elliott caught his arm. ‘No.’

Ben said to Eve, ‘It’s OK, don’t mind him. Have you lost your mummy? I haven’t got a mum, either. We’re here on our own, just like you.’

Eve’s face instantly transformed into one of amusement. She came up to Ben and arranged a small arm around his shoulders. ‘Ah, you’ve lost your mummy,’ she said. ‘That’s bad. Children die in this house, you know.’

‘What happened to you, Eve?’ Elliott asked.

‘I’ve got to go now,’ she told him. ‘Daddy wants me back.’

‘Who’s Daddy?’

‘He’s right here.’ She stared behind her, into the corridor depths.

With his heart racing, Elliott looked where Eve looked. He saw only emptiness.

‘He’s very close,’ Eve insisted. ‘I’ve got to go now or he’ll get mad.’ Then, with eyes shining in sudden delight, she ran fast towards Ben, shot out her hand and yanked him away with her.

‘Hey!’ Ben shouted as she hauled him down the staircase.

Eve dug her nails into his arm to make him squeal.
Then, throwing her chin back, she laughed and – flicking a challenging glance at Elliott – ran on with Ben, scurrying fast down one flight of stairs after another. Elliott ran after her, barely able to keep up.

Eve raced across the hall towards the East Wing, pulling Ben along. His feet slid across the marble floor like a mishandled rag doll.

The entrance to the East Wing was open again. Janey Roberts stood next to it. She was holding a screwdriver. When Elliott stopped to stare at her in disbelief, she offered him a terse nod of acknowledgement, then moved aside to let Eve and the protesting Ben go past.

Eve gave Ben a little kiss on the cheek and dragged him into the East Wing.

Elliott hesitated, watching Janey depart through a door leading to the library. Then, hearing a muffled shriek from Ben, he yelled ‘Dad!’ at the top of his voice and ran inside the East Wing.

Eve had a ferocious grip on Ben’s arm, and with a swing of her heels she turned left, dragging him with her.

‘What are you doing?’ Elliott bellowed. ‘Leave him alone!’

By the time he reached the same bend in the corridor both Eve and Ben were gone. Then he spotted the flash of Eve’s blonde hair bouncing against her shoulders at an intersection ahead. Elliott raced towards her, then stopped when he realised that Eve had led him a few more critical steps inside the East Wing.

‘Ben!’ he screamed, determined not to get lost. ‘Where are you? Shout if you can hear me!’’

No answer. Realising the only option that made sense was to find Dad so that they could search for Ben together, Elliott retraced his steps. Or thought he did. Although he’d only made four or five switches of direction he had misremembered one turn. That was enough. One incorrect decision led to three others, and moments later he arrived at one of the dreaded four-way
intersections. From here, of course, he could go straight ahead, left or right. Or, if he wanted, he could always go back.

With a shudder of foreboding tearing through him, Elliott came to a crashing halt. He couldn’t believe he was back in this place, facing the same numbing choices.

Had Dad heard his shout? Unless he’d been close, it was unlikely.

It’s OK, Elliott reassured himself, forcing himself to breathe slowly. Don’t panic like last time. Even if you’re lost, you can look for Ben.

Calling out Ben’s name, Elliott strode down the corridors. He went past endless portraits. Ironic smiles played across the owner’s lips.

Two can play at that game
, Elliott thought. He started knocking portraits off the walls. When that got no response he smashed the frames underfoot as well, burying his heel in all the faces of Vincent Cullayn. ‘Come on, show yourself!’ Elliott raged.

Then his foot crunched against something. An expanse of paper lay under his shoes. Even in the dim corridor Elliott could tell it was one of Eve’s trademark sketches.

Picking it up with both hands, he spread the paper out.

In the sketch he was standing on the carpet holding the sketch, just as he was in fact doing now. Eve was
behind him in the sketch as well, and Elliott couldn’t resist looking over his shoulder to check she wasn’t there. Relieved that the corridor was empty, he turned back to the sketch, squinting to make out the details.

And saw something behind Eve – something that was too large to be Ben.

Throwing the sketch down, Elliott twisted around, expecting to be attacked.

When he couldn’t see anyone he moved on warily.

Five minutes of walking and calling out for Ben later, Elliott decided to try a room. It hadn’t worked the last time he was in the East Wing, but the doors couldn’t
all
lead nowhere. He picked the nearest one. It led into a bathroom. The room looked innocent enough, and Elliott walked inside. At the back end of the bathroom there was a large circular mirror. Elliott ignored it, leaving the room via the door at its rear.

He found himself in another corridor. A few corridors later he tried a different door. It led into a bathroom with a large circular mirror.

The
same
room as before?

It couldn’t be, could it? Cold terror filtered through Elliott at the prospect that he was simply going in circles. He couldn’t afford to do that. To make sure he’d know if he entered the bathroom again, he used his finger to
mark a big cross in the dust coating the mirror. Dozens of corridors later, hoarse from calling Ben’s name, he randomly entered another room.

It was a bathroom. A bathroom with a large circular mirror.

With the sense of being on top of a dam that was about to break, Elliott made himself walk up to the glass.

There, in the mirror, was a shakily-written cross.
His
cross.

But words which hadn’t been there before were also written on the mirror. Elliott had to get extremely close to the glass to read them. The tight, angular style was not one he recognised:

Turn your eyes

Upon this dark glass

And see not yourself,

But me

With a yawning dread, Elliott lifted his gaze from the words and refocused on the image reflected in the mirror. Until a moment ago he was sure the glass had only shown the outline of the door behind him. Now the entire mirror was one shifting, trembling weight of darkness. Something stood at the centre of that darkness, watching him.

Elliott automatically raised his fists to protect himself, and turned.

The room was empty.

Shuddering, Elliott felt his entire world starting to dislocate. The only thing holding him together was the fact that he knew Ben was still inside the East Wing, and he had to find him.

Staggering on, he came to a wall. It was covered in a dark scrawl of fresh black ink.

Pick your weapon! Pick your piece!

Elliott had no idea what the words meant and ignored them, heading into the next corridor. He stopped when he saw what was inside.

Weapons. Dozens of them.

Each weapon was laid out on a section of velvet cloth. Many were ancient hunting pieces Elliott recognised from the portraits. Flintlock pistols. Grappling hooks. Snares. Various knives. The items were not heaped together in a pile, but arranged and spread out so that he could see them clearly. To encourage me to choose, Elliott realised.

Curiously, many of the weapons looked as if they might comfortably fit his hand. A long-poled staff. A bludgeon. A brass mesh packed with hooks.

His eyes were drawn to a spiked mace, held inside a
metal-studded glove. Elliott was deeply tempted to try the glove on. A whip also lay within tantalisingly easy reach. So did a length of rope. The rope was already knotted into a noose, as if only waiting for the right-sized neck.

At the end of the display of weapons a message had been stuck on the tip of a narrow-bladed cutlass. Reading it, Elliott had no doubt that it was not Eve but the East Wing’s master himself who had left it for him.

Pick your weapon, mister!

Pick your piece!

Gar land your limbs

From my gutting feast

Elliott shivered. An invitation, he realised. An offer to take what he wanted. As many weapons as he liked. And a strange compulsion almost led him to do just that, to load his shoulders with everything he could carry. Elliott had no idea where that compulsion came from, but he felt it luring him in as he plucked up a knife. He tested its weight. He’d never thrown a knife before, but suddenly he had a strong urge to do so, to snatch up the blade by the hilt and hurl it at the nearest wall.

He stopped himself just in time.

No, his instinct told him. Don’t. As soon as you accept
the call to arms, that’s when the real hunt begins.

Was Eve part of that hunt? Maybe. Elliott no longer doubted that she was working alongside the owner, just as Janey was. But what about Ben? He’d obviously planned the whole play-with-a-doll’s-house game with Eve. Did that mean that Ben, like Janey, was now his enemy as well? It didn’t matter, Elliott decided. It didn’t matter because even if Ben did help Eve, he wasn’t responsible. Cullayn was behind everything.

I’ve still got to find Ben and get him out of here, Elliott realised. I’ve got to.

On a whim he spat at one of the portraits, just as Janey had done in the diary. No reaction came, or so he thought. The reaction was on its way. It was only moments from arriving.

‘I won’t pick a weapon!’ Elliott snarled. ‘I won’t do it!’

As if Cullayn had already known he would choose nothing, Elliott came across another note, seared into the wall this time:

Every weapon you do not choose will be used against you and those you love

A moment later, a sliding sound made Elliott glance up.

Ben was waiting ahead of him, at a bend in the corridor.

Gasping with a mixture of fear and relief, Elliott headed towards him. It was only as he strode forward that he realised Ben wasn’t waiting to be rescued. One of Ben’s feet was pressed against the wall, ready to push off. His other foot was toe-forward in the same way Elliott had seen from Cullayn in so many of the portraits – inviting the chase.

As Elliott yelled out his brother’s name, Ben laughed at him.

Then somebody or something – some great arm that was not Eve’s – snatched Ben away again, leaving the corridor vacant.

‘Not yet,’ said a lively voice.

Elliott staggered up the corridor, then came to another crashing halt.

Ahead, the floor descended. There it was: the small set of steps, and, beyond it, the dark passageway.

Elliott’s heart tightened. Before he’d had no idea why this area terrified him so much. Now he knew the reason. One wall in the passageway was blank. No doors. No pictures. Cullayn’s secret room was here. Was this where the master of Glebe House was hiding?

With his scalp crawling with fear, Elliott stumbled away. Several turns later he found the floor again descending towards a set of small steps …

Seeing the dark passageway this time, Elliott felt as if he was on the verge of having the most terrifying thought in the world, but he wasn’t quite having it yet. He hurried on, bearing mostly left. He only stopped again when the floor descended. Ahead of him was a set of small steps —

This time Elliott thrust his fist into his mouth to hold back a scream.

Keep your eyes shut, he decided. Walk but don’t look. Maybe you’ll end up somewhere else. But he was too scared to keep that tactic up for long, and when he no longer dared to keep his eyes closed he found himself inside a corridor descending towards a set of small steps …

This time Elliott screamed out loud. He couldn’t hold it in, didn’t even try.