His Name Was Walter Page 11

  ‘No!’ begged Sparrow. ‘Please, Walter!’

  ‘I love you, Sparrow,’ said Walter. And he slung his knapsack over his shoulder, pressed her cold, feathered hands between both of his, and left her.

  CHAPTER

  15

  As Colin moved eagerly to turn the page, Tara gripped his hand to stop him. He turned to her in surprise. She was looking very anxious, and he felt a prickle of irritation. What was wrong with the girl now? If she didn’t like the way the story was going, she could just go back to bed and leave him to read on by himself.

  ‘What is it?’ he grumbled, trying to pull his hand free.

  ‘Lucas!’ Tara whispered. ‘He’s gone!’

  Colin peered into the darkness. Sure enough, the shape on the floor by the short corridor looked much flatter. While they’d been reading, Lucas had slipped out of his sleeping bag and prowled away.

  ‘He can’t have been gone long,’ Tara said. ‘I checked he was there just a minute ago.’

  ‘So?’ Colin muttered impatiently. ‘He’s probably just gone to the toilet or something.’

  ‘No, I’m sure he’s gone to see if he can open that locked door,’ Tara breathed. ‘Ever since we found it, I’ve been certain he wouldn’t be able to leave it alone. But he mustn’t open it, Colin! We’ve got to stop him!’

  Colin shook his head furiously. This was crazy! Who cared what Lucas Cheah did, as long as he left them alone? But Tara had turned off the torch and was standing up. She was beckoning urgently and starting to feel her way along the wall to the short corridor. Swearing under his breath, Colin crawled to his feet and padded after her, still clutching the book, his middle finger jammed inside to mark the place where they’d stopped reading. He knew it would have been more sensible to leave the book behind, but he felt uneasy about letting it out of his sight.

  They reached Lucas’s empty sleeping bag and rounded the corner into the corridor. Tara still had the torch, but she wasn’t using it. She didn’t need to. A dim light shone just past the abandoned ladder. And there was Lucas Cheah, standing with his ear pressed to the locked door, his torch beam shielded by his hand.

  He must have got a shock when he straightened and saw the dim figures of Colin and Tara standing beside him, but he didn’t show it. Colin found this both impressive and very exasperating.

  ‘There’s something in there,’ Lucas said casually. And when Colin concentrated, he could hear faint scratching, shuffling, growling sounds coming from inside the room. The hair rose on the back of his neck.

  ‘Come away, Lucas!’ hissed Tara. ‘Quickly! Before it hears you!’

  Lucas looked at her with interest. ‘It’s just a rat, or a bird that’s come down the chimney or something,’ he said.

  For Colin, that calm voice was like a burst of cool air in an overheated room. It cleared his head. He didn’t actually move away from Tara, but he would have liked to. ‘It could be a possum,’ he offered, to show whose side he was on.

  ‘Could be,’ Lucas agreed politely. ‘We’ll see — I hope!’ He dug into the pocket of his faded jeans and produced an old-fashioned key.

  ‘Where did you get that?’ Colin asked in surprise.

  Lucas bent to push the key into the keyhole. ‘It was taped to the back of one of the dresser drawers in the kitchen. I saw it when I was looking for candles.’

  And when we found this locked door you remembered it, thought Colin. You didn’t say a word, but you collected it when we went back to the kitchen to get our stuff. And all this time you’ve been waiting to try it.

  ‘Lucas, no!’ Tara whispered. ‘The key was hidden for a reason!’ She sounded genuinely frightened, and she must have felt it, too, because she actually darted past Lucas and tried to snatch the key out of the lock.

  ‘Hey!’ Ruffled for once, Lucas grabbed the girl’s hand and pulled it roughly away. Then, before she could move forward again, he turned the key, twisted the knob and cautiously pushed the door open.

  The scuffling, growling sounds grew louder. Cold, sour-smelling air rolled out of the darkness, catching in Colin’s throat, making it hard to breathe. The back of his neck started prickling again, his heart felt like a lump of ice in his chest, and all at once he knew that Tara had been right, that this was a mistake — a terrible mistake. But it was too late for him to do anything. The locked door was open, and Lucas, ignoring Tara’s frantic efforts to stop him, was already pushing it a little wider and moving into the room, shining his torch around the walls.

  The scrabbling sounds abruptly stopped. As Colin watched, frozen with horror, the torch beam picked up a hulking figure crouched by the heavily curtained window directly opposite the door. Slowly the figure stood up. Slowly it turned towards the doorway, thick arms dangling, hands twitching.

  Colin’s stomach turned over. A ghastly, brutish face glared at them in the torchlight. Camping in the house, Colin thought, with the part of his mind that wasn’t numb with shock and fear. Got in through the window. Maybe that’s why the door was locked — because the window’s not secure and the owner wants to at least keep the rest of the house safe.

  But why not just fix the window — or board it up?

  The hulking man looked straight past Lucas as if he were invisible, but his greedy eyes burned as they focused on Tara and Colin in the doorway.

  Tara moaned softly. Her knees buckled and she sank to the ground. Her hands were pressed to her open mouth. Her eyes were wild with terror. The man lumbered forward, his flabby lips curling back from his teeth in a soundless snarl.

  Quick! Get out! Shut the door on him! Lock it again!

  Somehow Colin made himself move. He heaved Tara bodily out of the doorway, then swung back, ready to slam and lock the door the moment Lucas came pelting out.

  To his astonishment, Lucas hadn’t moved. Lucas was still standing in the middle of the room, right in the shambling man’s path. As if nothing unusual was happening, he was casually flicking the torch beam around, checking out the yawning fireplace, the walls hung with peeling red and gold wallpaper, the gold velvet curtains streaked and powdered with mould …

  ‘Lucas!’ Colin hissed.

  Lucas didn’t respond. Almost sobbing with frustration and fear, Colin forced himself to stumble through the doorway, into the shadowy room. The frigid, stinking air seemed to claw at his skin. Cold bit the soles of his feet through his socks. His throat felt raw.

  ‘Lucas!’ he rasped. ‘Look out!’

  Lucas turned, eyebrows raised enquiringly. And then his face went completely blank as the snarling man lumbered straight through him, as if he didn’t exist.

  Colin’s heart seemed to stop. He stood frozen, face to face with something he could plainly see, but which his mind could not accept. Like a rabbit paralysed in the headlights of an oncoming car, he stared at the creature’s furious, bloodshot eyes, its swollen, sweating cheeks, its straggling hair and bared teeth. It took another step, and another. Colin could hear its wheezing breath and feel its ghastly chill. He could sense its rage. And suddenly it was as if his brain changed gear. Suddenly he knew the thing for what it was, and he knew what it wanted. Its burning eyes were fixed on the book — on the painted cover, the title, Colin’s finger marking the place.

  Drop it! Leave it! Run!

  Colin backed away, tightening his grip on the book. But the Beast moved, too, raising its hairy hands. Its stained fingers, covered in rings, curved like claws.

  ‘No!’ Tara’s voice cried from the door. ‘Leave us alone, beast-man! We’ve read about you, and we know what you are. Your time is over! It’s our time now! We’re not scared of you!’

  She sounded scared, though. Her voice was husky and shaking. When Colin found the courage to glance around at her she looked afraid, too — terribly afraid. Small, thin and deathly pale, she was clinging to the doorframe to stop herself from falling.

  But as she spoke the timbers of the old house creaked as if they were in pain, and the ruined room was suddenly filled with pure,
melodious sound — a strange little tune, whistled with the wind.

  The beast-man staggered, clapping his hands to his ears. Then, like dark mist, he vanished, and where he had stood there were only shadows — shadows and Lucas, who was shaking himself like a wet dog, his torch dangling from one limp hand.

  ‘Cold in here,’ Lucas mumbled. He rubbed his upper arms vigorously and peered at Colin standing frozen in front of him and Tara wilting by the door. ‘What’s up?’ he demanded. ‘Was there a rat? I missed it.’

  ‘It wasn’t a rat!’ Colin blurted out. ‘It was …’ He couldn’t go on. He didn’t know how to go on.

  Tara did it for him. ‘It was a spirit,’ she said steadily. ‘A bad, bad spirit! You couldn’t see it, but it walked straight through you!’

  Lucas just stared at her. He didn’t attempt to argue. ‘What did it look like?’ he enquired, as if he were really interested.

  ‘Show him, Colin!’ hissed Tara.

  Knowing it was useless, Colin pulled the book from under his cramped arm and found the painting of the beast-man.

  ‘That’s what we saw,’ he told Lucas, showing him the picture. ‘I know you won’t believe it, but it’s true.’

  Lucas glanced at the illustration, then looked up at them. ‘Don’t you think it’s a bit strange that you saw a ghost that looked exactly like a picture in a book you’ve just been reading?’ he asked.

  ‘No!’ Tara burst out passionately. ‘Because—’

  ‘It wasn’t imagination,’ Colin broke in quickly. ‘The thing was there. It was!’

  ‘Where is it now, then?’ Lucas asked, raising his eyebrows.

  ‘Gone,’ Colin said, seething with frustration. ‘There was this whistling, and it just—’

  ‘Disappeared?’ Lucas finished for him. ‘Funny how ghosts always do that, just before you can prove to someone who doesn’t believe in them that they exist. And I didn’t hear any whistling.’

  Colin clenched his hands into fists. ‘I can’t help that. I know what I saw.’

  ‘You know what you thought you saw,’ said Lucas, sauntering out of the room.

  By the time Colin stalked after him, furious, only Tara was waiting. Lucas had disappeared into the darkness, taking the key to the room with him. Colin shut the door, and in silence he and Tara crept back to the entrance hall. By the time they got there, Lucas was back in his sleeping bag with his eyes closed.

  ‘Lucas, give me the key,’ Colin whispered. ‘We’ve got to lock that door again.’

  Lucas slid deeper into his sleeping bag and turned to face the wall. Hot with anger, Colin crouched beside him and grabbed his shoulder.

  Lucas didn’t react at all. He didn’t move a muscle.

  ‘Give it to me, you idiot!’ Colin hissed. ‘Give it to me or I’ll—’

  ‘Leave it, Colin!’ Tara begged, tugging at his arm. ‘It doesn’t matter! And you might wake the others!’

  Reluctantly Colin let her pull him back to where his sleeping bag lay. As he sat down, he looked round at the dark corner of the short corridor, thought of the unlocked door, and shuddered.

  ‘We have to get that key!’ he muttered. ‘How can you say it doesn’t matter? That — that thing …’

  Tara sighed. ‘The door was locked to keep people out of that room, not to keep anything in. If the beast-man can walk through Lucas, he can walk through a door, too, any time he wants to, whether it’s locked or not.’

  Colin’s stomach heaved. For a terrible moment he thought he was going to be sick. He took a couple of deep breaths, and the feeling passed.

  ‘I can’t believe this is happening,’ he whispered. ‘These things don’t happen!’ And as he said the words, something in his shocked, overloaded brain seemed to settle.

  No, they don’t happen, a small, sane voice said in his mind. They don’t. You know that. Pull yourself together.

  Tara said nothing. She just tugged the book from under his arm, snapped on the torch and feverishly began looking for their place.

  ‘No!’ Colin said in a low voice. ‘Tara, I don’t want to read any more. Somehow this book is … I don’t know how it’s possible, it’s like some stupid movie, but … but it’s hypnotised us or something. It made us want to go on reading it. It made us think the beast-man from the picture had come alive!’

  Tara blinked at him incredulously. ‘Colin, you’ve got it all wrong! Completely wrong! Oh, I thought you …’ She broke off and took a shuddering breath. ‘The beast-man didn’t appear to us because we saw his picture in the book,’ she went on, making an obvious effort to speak calmly. ‘He was here all along! He haunts this house! He snuffles around in that room that was his den while he was alive — where Walter saw him! He’s probably looking for his box of money.’

  ‘You’re saying he’s a ghost,’ Colin said dully.

  ‘Of course I am! Because that’s what he is. And you know it, Colin! You know it, really. You just won’t let yourself admit it. You’ve talked yourself out of it, like Grace talked herself out of admitting the bad feeling we all felt outside the dining room.’

  She looked feverish. Her eyes were huge in her thin face.

  ‘Lucas hadn’t seen the picture of the beast-man, and he didn’t see anything in that room,’ Colin said stubbornly. ‘We had seen the picture of the beast-man, and we did see something. Lucas didn’t hear any whistling, but we did, and we’d read about Walter whistling and Lucas hadn’t. I think that means—’

  ‘It just means that Lucas hasn’t got our sort of radar,’ snapped Tara. ‘He’s got a different antenna! He’s not tuned to our radio band — whatever!’

  ‘Tara—’

  ‘Listen!’ Tara was scowling now, really scowling. ‘If you don’t want to go on with the book, then don’t! I’ll go on with it by myself. Someone’s got to do it, and quickly. The beast-man knows we’re here now. And he’s seen the book. He sensed it was a threat to him even before I panicked and told him we’d read about him and knew what he was — I saw that in his eyes. As soon as he gets his strength back, he’ll come for it. The story has to be finished by then.’

  ‘You’re crazy,’ Colin blurted out, before he could think.

  A shutter seemed to come down over Tara’s face. ‘You aren’t the first person to say that,’ she said coldly. ‘That’s why I’ve learned to keep part of myself hidden — like Sparrow in the story. I didn’t hide it from you, but that was my mistake. Go to sleep, Colin. I’ll do this!’

  She turned away from him, the book lying open on her lap, but Colin couldn’t leave it at that. He couldn’t help feeling responsible for her. ‘It’s just a fairytale, Tara,’ he protested feebly.

  Tara shook her head. ‘It’s written as a fairytale, but it’s a book of secrets, too. Secrets about this house! And the Beast doesn’t want them told — ever!’

  Colin was so confused that he didn’t know what to think or say.

  Tara stared down at the picture on the page in front of her, and suddenly she drew a sharp breath, and pointed. ‘Look!’ she said.

  Colin looked down. He saw a wonderful painting of a furniture-maker’s workshop. Wood shavings curled on the floor — he could almost smell them. Graceful furniture was ranged around the walls — tables, chairs, chests of drawers, stools … The furniture-maker was a gnome with a long white beard and a brown face that was crinkled like a walnut. He was polishing an elegant little desk — a desk with pigeonholes at the back and drawers at the front.

  ‘Seen that before?’ Tara demanded.

  And Colin had — of course he had! It was the desk that now stood in the kitchen of this house. It was the desk with the secret drawer, where they had found the book.

  He gaped at it, the precarious tower he’d built with all his sensible ideas swaying and threatening to fall.

  ‘Are you going to say we imagined the desk, too?’ Tara demanded.

  Colin shook his head. He knew he’d never seen this illustration before. He knew that the desk in the kitchen and the desk in the p
ainting were identical. The artist painted what he or she knew, he told himself, but somehow it didn’t help.

  Tara was already reading the text on the opposite page. With a sinking feeling, Colin began to do the same.

  CHAPTER

  16

  All that week, Walter spoke little and thought much. He endured the needling of Podge the Pig and the kindly, inquisitive clucking of the red hen. Now and then he caught glimpses of Lord Vane conducting the business of the treasure house with courteous dignity, and wondered at the man’s strength of will. Then it occurred to him that the treasure house was Lord Vane’s salvation. There, busy and respected by all, the man could forget the horror he was forced to live with at home.

  It was not the same for Sparrow. And whenever Walter remembered her despairing whisper that she was not permitted to be close to anyone, a sharp stab of anger pricked any bubble of admiration that might have blinded him to Lord Vane’s faults.

  The Beast had some sort of hold over Lord Vane and his daughter. That hold would have to be broken before Sparrow could be free. But what was it? Bound by some terrible fear or oath, Sparrow would not say, so it was up to Walter to find it out.

  Every night, alone in the quiet of his room, Walter went over everything he knew, everything he had heard or seen since meeting Sparrow. For six nights he sifted his memory over and over again, with no result. But on the seventh night, forcing himself to remember in detail his sighting of the Beast, something struck him with such force that he gasped aloud.

  When he had first glimpsed that figure hunched over the lamplit table, he had thought it was Lord Vane.

  And now that he came to think about it, this was not just because he had been seeing what he expected to see. It was because there was something familiar about the Beast’s size, the shape of his bent head, the curve of his shoulder, even the distance between his brow, nose and chin.

  Yes! On a quick glance, at that distance and in shadow, the Beast had borne a resemblance to Lord Vane. One good look at his bloated, degraded features had destroyed that first impression so completely that Walter had forgotten it, but the likeness had been there.