The Hunting Ground (6 page)

He was busy gathering together all the diary pages to show Dad when a sharp cry came from across the hall. Seconds later Ben came crashing into his room, running full-tilt. He arrived breathless and pale, but also fizzing with excitement.

‘You’re never going to believe this,’ he gasped.

‘Believe what?’

‘No point telling you. It’s amazing. Come and look.’

Ben was so eager to haul him into his room that when he got there Elliott expected to see, well, nothing less than a ghost. Instead, Ben’s room seemed no different from normal. Elliott tried to keep himself calm while his eyes swept the room.

‘It’s Old Albert,’ Ben said, as if only a blind man could miss it. He pointed at a big teddy bear sitting squarely in the middle of the bed.

‘I didn’t know you still had that ancient thing,’ Elliott said.

‘I haven’t been playing with him, you idiot,’ Ben said scathingly. ‘He was in the box downstairs with all our old toys. I haven’t touched him for years.’

‘So what’s he doing on your bed?’

‘How do I know? When I came back he was
just there
.’

Elliott warily circled Old Albert, studying him from all angles. The teddy’s fat hairy arms were sticking
straight out. He looked desperately keen to be played with.

‘Maybe Dad did it as a surprise? A joke,’ Elliott said.

‘Don’t be dumb. Anyway, something’s been playing with him.’

‘Playing?’

‘Look.’ Without getting too close to Old Albert, Ben pointed at his head. ‘There. See where he’s been
brushed
? See the fur? It’s all smooth. And the bow round his neck’s been made … I don’t know … prettier. Dad wouldn’t do that.
We
didn’t do it. It must be the ghost.’

Elliott felt his skin prickle. If it hadn’t been for Theo’s entries, and the scrishing sounds, he would never have taken the suggestion seriously. But an actual ghost in the house? Despite the diary, he wasn’t quite ready to accept that.

‘OK. Let’s suppose you’re right,’ he said, mainly to give himself time to organise his thoughts. ‘Let’s suppose it is a ghost. What kind of ghost are we talking about here?’

‘A child,’ Ben said. ‘Like in the diary.’

‘OK,’ Elliott agreed. ‘A child, because who else would want to brush an old teddy?’ The thought of that was briefly so ludicrous that he laughed.

‘Not just a child,’ Ben said, deadly serious. ‘A girl. Teddies, so a
little
girl,’ he added. ‘In the diary Eve liked her dolls, remember? We haven’t got any dolls. Old
Albert was probably the nearest thing she could find in the box.’

A real ghost girl?
Elliott thought. It was hard to believe, but the evidence appeared to be on the bed. And if their ghost was playing with cuddly toys, it presumably must be young. Could it really be Eve? The diary gave no indication that Eve had died, but they only had a single fragment to go on. Maybe she’d died soon after the last entry. Had there been an accident? Dad said there’d been a tragedy here the owners didn’t want to talk about …

‘A little girl who wants to play,’ Ben murmured. He gave Elliott an astonished look, as if he couldn’t quite believe what he was saying. ‘Are you scared?’

‘Yes,’ Elliott said. ‘And stop pretending you’re not.’

‘I’m not
that
scared,’ Ben growled back. ‘How scary can a little girl be? But what’s she doing here? And where’s she been hiding all this time? We’ve been here three days now. Where’s she been?’

‘The East Wing, I suppose,’ Elliott said. ‘You went in there last night. You opened it, didn’t you? Maybe you stirred something up. Our ghost might have been stuck in there all this time. But now it’s out, and it wants to play.’

‘I didn’t make that hole into the East Wing!’ Ben yelled.

‘Are you sure?’

‘Of course I am. I’m not lying! I didn’t do it!’

Elliott wanted to believe him, but after reading Theo’s diary he wasn’t entirely convinced Ben was telling the truth. Eve had torn the barrier down without admitting to it as well. On the other hand, if Ben
was
telling the truth, then something had smashed its way out of the East Wing, and suddenly the idea of a ghost in the house, little girl or otherwise, didn’t seem so harmless.

‘Maybe we can … I don’t know … find out what she’s doing here,’ Ben said breathlessly. ‘You know, invite her to play. Find out about her. How she died.’ He nodded to himself, squeezing his hands together. ‘Yeah, why not?’

‘What are you talking about?’ Elliott said, trying to think. ‘We’re not playing with any ghosts. Anyway, if you were a ghost girl, stuck here, would you rather play with toys or play with
us
?’

‘What do you mean?’ Ben asked, taken aback.

‘I mean, we’re real. She’ll probably be a whole lot more interested in you and me than in Old Albert.’

That quietened Ben down. In any case, Elliott could tell that Ben had no desire to play with ghosts, little girls or otherwise. He was only getting ready to do so in case one slipped into the room, giving him no choice.

A child wanting to play, Elliott thought, a small shiver running through him. The innocent way Ben said it, nothing could have sounded more natural. But if a
dead
little girl wanted to play, what did it mean? The same as with a living child? Or would a ghost child want to play in other ways? In dead ways? With dead things?

Elliott traced the lines of the decorative bow around Old Albert’s neck. Only smaller fingers than Ben’s could have tied it so neatly.

‘Come on, we’re getting out of here,’ he said. ‘Let’s find Dad.’

He was about to lead the way when Ben grabbed his shirt. ‘Wait,’ he said. ‘What’s that?’

Elliott saw it now: a sheet of paper fluttering through the part-open door.

When it landed near them both boys, breathing hard, stood looking at each other for a moment. Then Ben tiptoed across to pick the sheet up.

In thick, red-pencilled letters, a child’s non-joined-up style, someone had left them a message:

To my friends

Ben unfolded the note and brought it across to Elliott.

The message inside was simple.

Do you want to play?

Ben threw the note down, backing away. ‘It
is
a child!’ he whispered. ‘It might already be in the room with us.
Somewhere we can’t see …’ He kicked the bed.

Elliott didn’t know what to think, but the only sensible thing to do was to get them both out of the room.

‘It’s OK,’ he told Ben, gritting his teeth. ‘I don’t know what’s outside, but we’re going to leave together. Whatever’s out there, we’ll walk straight past it. Are you ready?’

Ben swallowed and nodded, and Elliott had just taken hold of his arm when they heard a scrishing noise.

‘Get behind me,’ Elliott ordered.

As Ben retreated, Elliott watched the doorway. Excited scrambling had started up outside, scurrying feet taking less than a second to run the whole length of the corridor and back. Elliott checked the window behind him. Dad was out there, a faraway dot in the southern grounds. Heading towards the glass, Elliott was getting ready to open the window when the bedroom doorway creaked a little wider.

Ben gasped as a shadow edged across the room. ‘Shut the door!’ he yelled. ‘Elliott, don’t just stand there! Shut it!’

But before Elliott could move another object was thrown inside the bedroom. It entered half way up the door this time, bouncing lightly across the carpet,
bump, bump
, before coming to rest near Ben’s feet.

Elliott nearly collapsed with relief when he saw that it was only a scrunched-up ball of paper.

He opened it. Inside was a sketch. It was in Eve’s style, as described in the diary, but different as well. Blockier. Darker. Done in pencil but so heavily that it looked more like charcoal.

It showed a boy asleep in bed, the stars visible through his bedroom window.

‘It
is
Eve!’ Ben hissed. He stared at the sketch, then gave Elliott an amazed look. ‘It’s a picture of … that’s me, isn’t it? It’s me sleeping in the new bed.
She’s been watching us.’

Sweat trickled down Elliott’s neck as he gazed at the sketch. Then he looked up at the door, preparing himself for Eve to enter. ‘Is it really you, Eve?’ he whispered. No answer. Only swift, eager panting from the corridor outside.

Eyes wide with fear, Ben picked up a cup from the bedside table and threw it at the door.

Readying himself, Elliott said loudly, ‘Whoever you are, I’m coming out.’

‘Elliott, no!’ Ben yelled. ‘Stay here! Don’t go out!’

A new noise from the corridor stopped Elliott in mid-stride:
scribbling
. Seconds later another tight wad of paper was thrown into the room.

‘Don’t touch it!’ Ben said.

But Elliott had already walked into the centre of the
room and picked up the sheet of paper. It was another note.

Can I come in?

Such a simple question. Such a disarmingly simple question. But what reply to give? Say
yes
and whatever was in the corridor might come straight inside. They weren’t ready for that. But how would it react if they said
no
?

‘Say no!’ Ben demanded. ‘Go on, Elliott! Hurry! Say no! Write it down!’

Elliott scanned the room for a pen or pencil, couldn’t find one. He was still deciding what to say when the visitor, clearing its throat, said something of its own.

‘A is for Alice, who fell down the stairs …’
It was a voice at last, but not the kind Elliott would have expected. It sounded like a girl, but not quite. It was gruff at the edges. And there was something truly terrifying about that when you could not see the face.

‘ … B is for Bobby, all dead in his chair. C is for Craig, who couldn’t stay warm …’

The words flowed eerily, a sing-songy voice that could easily have been either a girl’s or a boy’s. Or even a man’s, Elliott realised. Yes. It could have been a man strangulating his throat to make himself sound younger.

‘D is for David, under the lawn. E is for Eddie, dragged and bound. F is Felicity, who never was found …’

Fear sliced through Elliott. He couldn’t decide: was this a man contorting his voice to sound like a girl, or a girl imitating a man by pitching her voice lower? But why would a girl do something as weird as that? The longer Elliott listened the more he sensed that they
might not be dealing with a child at all. More likely something that only sounded like a child. Something that wanted them to
think
it was a little girl.

‘A is for Alice, who fell down the stairs …’

Elliott recognised that name as the nine-year-old ghost-girl in Theo’s diary, but the other names were new. Had the owner been responsible for more deaths than the four mentioned in the diary? The rhymes ran sequentially through the alphabet, and Elliott steadied himself to listen.

‘… G is for Guy, crushed under a horse. H is for Henry, broken of course. J is for Jane, now ageless and white, and also for Jack, at the end of his fight …’

‘Where’s Dad?’ Ben whispered. ‘It’s him singing, isn’t it? It must be.’

‘Shush,’ Elliott murmured. ‘You know it’s not Dad.’

‘… and also for John, once quiet and tall. And L is for Leo, who gave his all. M is for …’

Elliott didn’t wait to find out who ‘M’ was. He ran towards the door and kicked it open.

A ghost stood outside.

It was Eve. Although her skin was utterly grey, it was definitely her. Definitely the girl from the diary sketch. But what had happened to her? She looked wild. Her matted hair was plastered in a tangled blonde mess over
her cheeks, her teeth clenched in a vast fury. Stamping the ground, she shook a tiny enraged fist at them.

Her doll, Katerina, lay next to her on the hallway floor. Eve picked Katerina up by her feet and swung her solid plastic head at Elliott,
swoop swoop
, like a battering ram.

Elliott barely knew what he was saying, he was so frightened. ‘It’s … it’s OK …’ he stuttered.

Eve stared not at Elliott, but at Ben. There was a child’s curiosity contained in that stare, but it was violent too, floating in its own raw well of meaning. Yet it was unquestionably a little girl they were looking at. It was certainly Eve and, though her red dress was filthy, it was still a little girl’s dress, nothing worse. And when she dropped her angry pose and suddenly whispered a heartfelt
Help me, help me, please
, before abruptly twisting around and running off, Elliott found himself following her to see where she went.

Eve was fast. Her feet, spilling dust, hardly touched the floorboards. With that pitiable
help me
ringing in his ears, Elliott guessed where she was heading and ran towards the East Wing. He got there just in time to see Katerina being carted through the entrance.