Shiver Page 10

  “You could go there one day, if you wanted to,” Sebastian said.

  “I suppose I could.”

  “You can see the Northern Lights from here sometimes. Not very much … just a quick ribbon of light in the sky, like a rippling curtain. I didn’t know what it was, at first, but Mum told me. It’s a very rare thing, to see them this far south.”

  Without realizing it, they had wandered a considerable distance from their homes, and the house and outbuildings – including Samuel’s cottage – were nowhere in sight.

  “D’you think we will find their graves?” Samuel asked, glancing at the hills, so silent and still under their mantle of snow.

  Sebastian didn’t answer. He was fighting the creeping chill of unbearable cold that was beginning to invade his body. Must keep moving, he thought, and began beating his arms against the sides of his great padded jacket. “How many layers do you need in this place to keep warm? You know … if Mum does decide to move, I hope she chooses the Caribbean next time.”

  “You don’t mean that,” Samuel said, laughing.

  “Don’t I?”

  After walking for what seemed like ages, mindful of their promise to return within the hour, they finally stumbled upon the tiny blackened ruin, nestling against the edge of the forest. The little chapel looked abandoned and neglected, its roof open to the elements. Snow had piled up inside and swept against what remained of the broken altar-table. They stood at the entrance, looking in.

  “Is it how you remember?” Samuel asked.

  “Not exactly,” Sebastian murmured. “It was a hot summer’s day the last time I came here. We had a picnic.”

  “I wish we had one now … a flask of tea, at any rate.”

  On the remaining walls were one or two grotesquely grinning gargoyles, disconcerting in appearance. Samuel stared at them, unnerved and fascinated. It seemed like a bad omen, somehow. Gravestones bent in the shadow of the tiny ruined chapel. It was possible to tell at a glance that there were carvings of skulls and crossbones on some of them, the ghastly death’s head protruding through a light dusting of snow, scabbed all over with lichen and moss. Samuel shuddered. He stood in the snow, not really knowing how they’d got there, nor where they were. He was almost too cold and exhausted to think straight. The graveyard, he could see, was sheltered on two sides by a thick stand of trees so that the gravestones were not completely obliterated by the gathering snow. This allowed them to wipe away the white stuff that had drifted, and read the headstones … one or two of them, at least.

  They knelt, ignoring the cold and damp seeping into their knees. Then they dug, using their gloved hands as shovels. It was easy to clear away the snow where it had drifted, because of the protection afforded by the sheltering copse of trees. Finally, after a while, they found what they were looking for.

  “Here!” Samuel shouted. He sat back on his heels, triumphant.

  Sebastian, who was working on another part of the little graveyard, abandoned his own gloomy efforts and headed towards Samuel.

  Samuel was pointing to one headstone in particular.

  There were two names chiselled into the sandstone, half-eroded by the elements, but still legible. Eliza Morton. Born 1595. Died 1604. Then below that: John Morton. Born 1597. Died 1604.

  “This is where they’re buried,” Sebastian said. “We were right … they must have died of the plague.”

  “But that still doesn’t explain why they’re haunting the house,” Samuel mused.

  “I wonder if their bodies are actually here or not?” Sebastian said ghoulishly. “The books said the plague victims were all buried and covered in lime … remember?”

  Samuel shuddered, recalling the chalky dust on Eliza’s clothes, and quickly put the thought out of his mind.

  “It’s getting cold,” Sebastian complained, rubbing his gloved hands together to ignite some warmth into them. “We should be getting back.”

  Samuel struggled up from his kneeling position to begin their journey home, reluctantly leaving the ruined chapel and its haphazard graveyard behind them.

  They walked on for a minute or two in silence.

  Samuel was wondering what exactly they would find, if they had the temerity to break open the graves where Eliza and John Morton were supposed to lie sleeping. Would they find them empty – as Sebastian had suggested? He pushed these grim thoughts aside. They were too horrible to even contemplate and he felt sickened by them. But his imagination had gone into overdrive. He couldn’t stop thinking about it.

  Then he found himself pulled up short, as he slammed straight into Sebastian’s back. Sebastian had stopped walking and was standing stock still.

  “Hang on … where are we?”

  Samuel was instantly alarmed by the worried note in Sebastian’s voice – he who knew the moor so well.

  “The cloud’s come down.”

  He was right. The weather had changed almost without them noticing.

  “We can’t see anything. Where on earth has the house gone?”

  They weren’t even sure in which direction they were heading. They might as well have been spun round on the spot several times; they had no idea which way they were facing.

  Then it hit them, as suddenly as a wall of ice, sweeping down unexpectedly from the high hills, as silent and lethal as a knife. A blizzard. An almost complete white-out, leaving them struggling and blinded.

  Sebastian reached out and grabbed Samuel by the arm.

  “So we don’t get separated,” he shouted, in explanation, “and lose each other.”

  They inched their way forward, as the blizzard whirled crazily all about them. It was terrifying to be aware suddenly of how dangerous and hostile this landscape could become, even when you knew it as well as Sebastian did. Every landmark, every familiar fence post, tree or distant hill was totally wiped out, masked from view. They might as well have been wading through soup. Nothing was visible, nothing at all. The boys were very frightened now.

  In silence, they clung to each other, attempting to make their stumbling way forward.

  “It’s hopeless,” Sebastian shouted. “If we keep walking we might end up wandering further from the house.”

  But if we stand still, we’ll freeze. The words were on the tip of Samuel’s tongue, but he refrained from saying them out loud.

  They wandered blindly for some minutes more, until they found themselves up against a hard object of some kind. A lone tree, unprotected and desolate against the elements. They leaned against it for support and stood still, while the blizzard raged around them. When Samuel next attempted to move his foot, he saw that it had already become encrusted with snow, which had been swept against the side of his leg as if he were some immovable object, like a barn or the outbuildings.

  If we’re not careful, he thought, we’ll turn into a snowdrift ourselves, covered up for all eternity … like the two children lost in the house.

  Sebastian didn’t say it, but he was very afraid. He knew enough about the terrain around his home to understand that this could be their last and final resting place … Bitterly, he began to regret his earlier enthusiasm and determination to find the ruined chapel. It had been misplaced confidence, always thinking he knew best. Then he thought sadly of what his family would have to say, when they found out he and Samuel were lost, and had not returned from their foolhardy expedition.

  The kitchen at Dunadd was bustling and warm with life. The dogs were crouching under the table, Granny Hughes was cooking so smells wafted deliciously down the passageway, and Mr Hughes was sitting down having a chat with Isabel Cunningham about the heating problem in her studio.

  “It’s hard to work in there when it’s so cold.”

  “You could rig yourself up a nice little stove. There’s an old one in the barn,” Mr Hughes was telling her. “We could cut a hole in the roof and feed the vent through it.”

  “Would that work?”

  “Like a treat. You could burn logs and coal in it, heat the place up n
icely. Then you’d be warm even when the power’s down.”

  Isabel stood up, encouraged by these thoughts. Her plans were looking up every day.

  “Well, I’ll let you good people get on then …” and with that she went back to the cottage. At the back of her mind she was wondering where Samuel had gone and what he might like for tea tonight. Something warming like soup perhaps, with the weather closing in? It didn’t occur to her to worry quite yet …

  Chris Morton was more than usually agitated.

  “What is it, Mum?” Fiona asked.

  “It’s odd about the electricity, I keep thinking about it, that’s all,” she admitted, distractedly. “For a minute there the other night, it was doing some really odd things. I’ll call an electrician once the roads are clear again.”

  “You’d have thought it would’ve bin back on again by now, that’s for sure,” Granny commented, whisking one of the rabbits off the table. “Put that thing back in its cage,” she instructed Fiona.

  Fiona stood up, grabbing the rabbit under its belly. She swept it into an open cage on the worktop and sealed it shut. Then she glanced across the moor at the snowbound hills.

  “That’s odd.”

  “What is?”

  Fiona had noticed lights glimmering through the thickening snowfall, just before the blizzard hit. “The Sheriffmuir Inn must have their power back. I saw their lights earlier.”

  Chris Morton came and stood beside her and peered out.

  “Really? So, why don’t we?”

  “I wonder if Mr MacFarlane’s been affected?” Fiona blurted out before she could stop herself. Her mother shot her a sharp look.

  “Well, you’re not going to visit him to find out,” Chris Morton said. “The weather’s closing in again. Look … it’s a virtual white-out out there!”

  Granny Hughes agreed. “It’s not good,” she murmured. “All the same,” Granny sighed. “Seems awfy strange.”

  She was right, but no one wanted to admit it. It seemed they were the only ones on Sheriffmuir without power.

  Charles chose that moment to wander in from the hallway.

  “Where are the other two?” his mother demanded.

  He shook his head. “They should be back by now. They went out in the snow.”

  “They what?” Chris Morton exclaimed, unable quite to believe her ears. “What possessed them?” she cried.

  “It was my fault,” Charles stammered. “We … we were looking for something.”

  “Yes. Looking for trouble,” she snapped, but fear gripped her chest like a tightening vice.

  Charles shook his head. “Fiona and I came back, and they promised they’d …”

  “Why on earth did you let them go off on their own?”

  “We didn’t think … we thought …”

  “Exactly. You didn’t think,” his mother lashed out, in her rising panic.

  “Now, now. Let’s not lose our heads,” Mr Hughes said.

  “Maybe they’re next door,” Chris Morton muttered, looking out at the gathering maelstrom.

  “Shall I go and look?” Fiona offered, getting up from the table.

  “No, I’ll go,” Mrs Morton insisted. “You lot stay here.”

  Before they could stop her, she had buttoned up her padded jacket and pulled on her boots. From the kitchen window they watched her disappear between the trees, in search of Isabel.

  Her fear increased with every footstep. She was beginning to get a bad feeling about this.

  The Alarm is Raised

  Above the clustered rooftops and tower of Dunadd, the snow clouds gathered, swirling endlessly in a confetti storm of white. It would have been pretty, if it wasn’t so lethal; if two boys hadn’t been out in it, lost on the hillside, not knowing which way to turn. How long before it got dark? Would the blizzard lift before then, or would it continue? Sheriffmuir was not a place to be out in after dark, particularly when a storm like this one hit. It was impossible to see more than two metres ahead, other than the shapeless forms of walls and shrubs. And Sebastian and Samuel were out there now, nowhere near the house. They had no landmarks or signposts to help them.

  “What is it?” Granny demanded when Chris Morton returned soon after with Isabel. She could tell by the looks on their faces that something was desperately wrong. Isabel had searched the cottage and Chris Morton had stood outside in the blizzard, helplessly calling out the boys’ names. Of course, there had been no response, other than a deafening silence.

  “It’s Samuel and Sebastian. They weren’t at the cottage. They haven’t come back.”

  Fiona and Charles exchanged worried glances.

  “They’re missing.”

  Fiona glanced towards her brother guiltily. He lowered his head, reading her thoughts. It was time to tell the truth. Or part of it, anyway. They were frightened of the consequences: of having withheld the truth in the first place, and for their brother and friend, lost out on the moor in the middle of a terrible blizzard.

  “We know where they went,” Charles blurted out, his face turning pale as all the adults turned to stare at him.

  “What?” Isabel hissed, her voice dangerously quiet, as if she couldn’t quite believe her ears.

  “We know where they might have gone.” He began nervously. “They went off in search of a graveyard, for something to do.”

  “Graveyard? What graveyard?” Isabel spat, confusion making her angry.

  “It was after reading this book at the sleepover. We wanted to see if there really was a plague graveyard on Sheriffmuir, like the book said there was.”

  “Book?”

  “This book we found …” Fiona explained “… in the library. We were just reading up about it. Charles and I went along too. The weather was fine earlier, no snow or anything. Then Charles and I decided to come home ’cos we thought it was too much for Lucy, and the others… well, they decided to keep looking. We thought they’d be alright. We didn’t think there’d be a blizzard or anything.”

  She exchanged nervous glances with her brother. Once again, they had omitted to tell the whole truth. They hadn’t mentioned the ghostly apparition that had pointed them in the direction of the graveyard in the first place.

  But they had said enough to terrify the adults into radical action.

  Mr Hughes and Chris Morton volunteered to walk to the Inn to raise the alarm, but Isabel insisted that she went instead.

  Granny protested. “The weather’s awful. You’ll be lost an’ all. You can’t see a thing out there.” But Mr Hughes reassured her.

  “If we stick to the road we can’t go wrong. We’ll just follow the fence along the driveway.”

  “You should stay here in case Samuel comes back,” Chris implored Isabel, but Isabel would not hear of it.

  “One of us needs to get help and someone has to stay here,” she said practically.

  Isabel set off through the snow, accompanied by a faithful Mr Hughes, who endeavoured all the time to reassure her.

  Fiona and her brother watched them go with foreboding in their hearts.

  Although Sebastian and Samuel had gone in the opposite direction, in search of the ruined chapel, the adults decided that it would be better to get more professional help involved in the search, rather than try and find them themselves.

  “That’s our best bet,” Mr Hughes had told them. “We’ll be no use to the boys if we get lost up there ourselves.”

  “He’s right,” Granny urged everyone. They stood at the window, looking out in fear.

  At the Inn the power was on, but the telephone cables were down. However, the owners managed to get a signal on their mobile and called for help. The police and rescue services promised to attend, but the road was completely blocked, so this would prove difficult.

  The staff at the Inn tried to calm down Isabel with comforting words and offers of sweet tea, but she waived them all aside. All she wanted was her son. Up at the house, Chris Morton was enduring a similar anguish. Both mothers waited … in
torment.

  The hours ticked by, and Isabel began to entertain the possibility of Samuel being lost on the freezing moor overnight. How would he survive? Periodically, they tried to ring Chris Morton at the house to see if Samuel and Sebastian had turned up there, safe and well, putting an end to the whole unbelievable nightmare; proving that it had all been a silly mistake, after all, but there was still no signal on the mobile. No one answered at the house.

  A little later they switched the radio on and Isabel listened in stoical silence to the following report.

  “Fears are growing for the safety of two young boys missing on Sheriffmuir since late this afternoon. They were last seen at around lunchtime, but failed to return home after going out to try to find an old graveyard. It is believed that the boys, aged 12 and 13, may have wandered off onto the moor. The alarm was raised when Samuel Cunningham and Sebastian Morton were reported missing by their families early this evening. Efforts to organize a search party have been hampered by the severe weather. A helicopter cannot be sent out at present owing to the white-out conditions and low cloud, severely hampering visibility. Rescuers are hoping that the boys have enough sense to have taken shelter somewhere.”

  Isabel leant forward and switched the radio off. She stared into the roaring fire. Mr Hughes sat nervously beside her, trying to offer support.

  “It’ll be fine, so it will,” he murmured kindly, patting her hand. “Take a sip of tea now. It’ll do you good.”

  Isabel shook her head in silence. Her heart had been gripped by panic at hearing her son’s name mentioned on the radio in that context. A mother’s worst fears had been realized. She couldn’t believe this was happening to her … or to Chris either. What must she be feeling like, back at the house, waiting for news? The two women had never dreamt anything like this would happen when they had sat together in the drawing room the other night, sharing a bottle of wine as they watched the children toast bread in front of the fire. Their lives had been turned upside down in a matter of minutes, as they realized the boys were missing.

  The reality of it hit Isabel with terrible force. She had been trying to pretend that none of this was happening, that it was all some elaborate joke, and the boys would suddenly turn up, safe and well; Samuel telling her he’d just been sledging with Sebastian.