Callum remembered how Melissa had nearly put her hand in the fire. He wasn’t sure he could call her honest or loyal, but he knew that she was brave and trusting. And something, his Luck maybe, told him that she was genuine. She really did want to help him.
But he’d hesitated too long over the right word. Gran interrupted sharply.
‘The best thing you could do for a friend like that is try to straighten her out. What was she wearing? All that alternative fashion nonsense, crystals hanging around her neck, those silly tattoos! All she needs is a few paper charms pinned to her skirt. I’ll bet she calls herself a Wiccan. What’s she trying to be, some kind of witch? You watch out, Callum -’
Callum was so angry he didn’t wait to hear the rest of Gran’s tirade. Shoving the drop-leaf table out of the way, he grabbed his homework and stormed upstairs.
*
The impact of his dramatic departure was somewhat lessened when Callum had to come back down to make tea. He’d forgotten it was his turn, and he knew that even after a row, Gran would be expecting him to stick to the routine. If he didn’t, there would be no supper at all.
He clattered around in the kitchen, making as much noise as possible. Then they ate a silent meal together. There had never been such a frosty atmosphere between them. If the cottage was too small to keep secrets in, it was even more cramped when you were sharing it with an enemy.
After tea, Callum marched back upstairs and spent the evening in his room. Sitting alone in the cold for a couple of hours made him realise how pleasant it really was sharing the fireside with Gran on a windy November evening.
At last, Gran went to bed too. There was no shifting of furniture tonight; maybe she suspected Callum might still be awake and didn’t want to risk giving away the location of her hidden occult library. Despite her reaction to Melissa, Callum didn’t think Gran suspected he might have discovered it.
The books . . . As he turned the thought of them over and over in his mind, Callum was only half aware of Gran getting ready for bed next door. The books held answers, he was sure of it. Answers she seemed determined to keep from him. The idea of all that knowledge sitting downstairs, just waiting to be discovered, was torture. What he had said to Melissa was true – he couldn’t risk moving any of the books out of the cottage. But that didn’t mean he couldn’t take another look at them. If he was careful . . .
His mind made up, Callum counted to two thousand after Gran’s light went out before he dared to move. Cadbury sighed in displeasure at another midnight disturbance, then got up and stretched. For a moment, Callum was afraid the cat was going to come downstairs with him and get in his way. Shutting him in the bedroom wasn’t an option, as Cadbury was bound to yowl for the door to be opened. But instead of following Callum to the door, the cat leaped across to his post on the windowsill and stared out into the darkness. Then he gave a low, rumbling growl of warning.
‘What’s going on out there?’ Callum whispered. ‘You’re making me nervous, Cad.’
The growl was a sound Callum rarely heard from Cadbury. The cat did lunatic acrobatics sometimes, and Callum was permanently at war with him over the number of dead birds left on the patio, but Cadbury had an easygoing and friendly nature. The strange growling was totally out of character. Callum shivered.
‘Just keep it down and don’t wake Gran,’ he told Cadbury as he slipped through the door on to the tiny landing. It was pitch dark. He tiptoed to the top of the stairs and slowly made his way down, every floorboard in every step creaking as he went. Again Callum had forgotten to put on socks or slippers, and again his feet were freezing. His hands too.
Is it just the cold? he wondered. Or is something bad about to happen?
He gave himself a test by dragging one finger hard along a rough timber beam in the stair wall. A sharp pain stabbed underneath his skin. Callum gasped and bit his lip; he’d picked up a splinter on the old wood.
But at least he could feel his fingertips. No visions tonight, then.
Callum made it to the bottom of the stairs without waking Gran, and for a moment stood still, breathing slowly while his heart pounded. He’d have to pull himself together if he wanted to find the old scrapbook again.
There was a faint red glow coming from the grate, just enough to see by. When he’d managed to get his breathing back to normal, Callum quietly lifted one of the straight-backed chairs and carried it to the window. He knew where to look now; he wouldn’t have to move too many books before he found the one he wanted. Maybe he could manage to sneak the ancient scrapbook into his rucksack, get it to school and make copies of the picture of Jacob. Or maybe he could just take the picture with him and leave the book in its usual place. That would be safer.
Callum paused, just in case he’d disturbed Gran’s sleep when he was creeping downstairs, or she’d stirred while he was moving the chair. These days Callum knew all too well what it was like to lie awake in the dark, straining to hear something out of the ordinary.
The night was silent. Almost too quiet. There was no wind, and no sound from outside. Even the owls seemed to have lost their voices, and Callum felt the hair at the back of his neck rise. It was like the feeling he’d had in his dream, when he had come to the path beside the canal – a sensation of dread, the sure knowledge of the presence of evil. Only, at the canal he had known that the evil was in the past, over and done with. This was entirely more urgent. There was evil here now. It was beyond the cottage walls, but it was close – too close. In the garden perhaps, waiting and lurking, a thing old and full of malevolence.
Had Jacob come back? Callum had shut him out once, but he was sure the ghost boy wasn’t going to give up. Could he be out there now, prowling with his demon hound? All Callum’s body was prickling now with the sensation of danger, not just his fingers. Was the danger all around the house? Callum closed his eyes and allowed the unfamiliar sense to guide him. No, it was worse at the back. He could feel it there, sense it as though it were calling him. It was in the back garden.
Next to the doorway leading to the little kitchen, the wall of the sitting room had a set of full-length glass doors that opened on to the garden. Callum crossed to them and quietly pulled open one of the curtains so he could look outside.
The sky had cleared. The garden was awash in silver moonlight and blue shadows. Callum didn’t know what he expected to see. Anything out of the ordinary would have startled him, even a fox crossing the garden, but all seemed peaceful. Nothing stirred, but the tingling in Callum’s body was stronger than ever. He scanned the night again and his heart turned over with a thump of shock.
Someone was standing at the far end of the garden.
Callum could not make out any features, but he felt sure it wasn’t Jacob. It was not anyone or anything he had seen before. It was thin and spindle-shanked, a black stick-figure silhouetted in the bright moonlight. It might have been a leafless tree, except that no tree had ever stood there before. Callum’s mouth went dry as he realised that the shadowy figure was inside, not outside, the low garden wall.
Then, as he watched, the figure began to make its way slowly up the winding brick path towards the cottage.
With every step, fear tightened its grip on Callum. The moonlight was so bright it threw long shadows from Gran’s plum trees and bird table, but the moving figure cast no shadow of its own. It was halfway to the house now, and Callum still couldn’t make out anything about it, except that its body seemed to be glistening wet. Callum watched, appalled and fascinated, his hair on end. The thing was not human, but it wasn’t a ghost. It was something else.