Shiver Read online

  But she knew that wasn’t going to happen.

  This was no sledging weather.

  Dark Encounters

  Meanwhile, back at the house, Fiona and Charles sat upstairs gazing out the window, waiting for the blizzard to lift. But it didn’t. It simply went on swirling, as Sheriffmuir grew darker and darker.

  “Maybe one of us should have gone out looking for them?” Fiona said anxiously.

  “What good would that do? We’d only get hopelessly lost. We can’t do that to Mum. She’s upset enough as it is.”

  “We can’t just sit here and do nothing,” she cried. She was tugging on her hair nervously, a habit she adopted if she was distressed about anything.

  “Will you stop doing that?” Charles said.

  “What?”

  “Your hair?”

  “Oh.”

  But she kept on doing it all the same. It gave her some kind of comfort.

  They were sitting in Charles’s room, up in the tower. Normally, Fiona would never hang around in the boys’ rooms, but this was different. The brother and sister, normally quite distant with each other, were seeking solace in one another’s company. Charles stared at the blank computer screen on his desk. For him, this was where it had all started, with that stupid ghost story he’d been trying to write. Shiver. Could words be so powerful that they could make things happen? That was nonsense and he knew it. Maybe his opening sentence had been more effective than he realized.

  “We could try to find out more about the graveyard,” Fiona cried out suddenly, on an impulse. “Find out where exactly it is?”

  “What difference would that make? Samuel and Sebastian are lost. We still wouldn’t know where to find them.”

  “No, but it would give us a clue.”

  But Charles was sunk in gloom and no amount of conjecturing on Fiona’s part could lift his spirits. He blamed himself for letting this happen, for allowing the other two to wander off on their own.

  “I knew it was a stupid idea,” he muttered.

  “I know,” Fiona comforted him. “But you did try to tell them. It’s not your fault.”

  There was a short silence, while the snow built up against the window-panes.

  “We could try to find Eliza,” Fiona suddenly suggested, “… get her to tell us where the graveyard is?”

  Charles glanced across at his sister. “I suppose it would take our mind off things. There’s no use sitting here, worrying. That’s not going to help anyone, is it?”

  “Exactly,” Fiona said.

  So, under cover of darkness, they began a search of their own, furiously examining every gloomy corner, corridor and attic of the house they knew so well. They left no stone unturned, no possible avenue unexplored. They would not give up.

  Night had properly fallen. And still Samuel and Sebastian hadn’t returned. The Wharry Burn muttered quietly beneath its blanket of snow and ice. The winter before had been so severe that even the fast-flowing waterfall near Mr MacFarlane’s farmhouse had fallen silent and turned into an ice sculpture. At least temperatures hadn’t dropped quite that far, yet.

  There was a possibility the boys could survive the night, if they had found somewhere to shelter. Last year that would not have been remotely possible. No one would have survived a night outside in temperatures of minus twenty degrees. How resourceful were the boys? Their families hoped they were extremely resourceful. But what if one of them had met with an accident? The nagging, worrying thoughts swirled about as pitilessly as the snowstorm itself. It was no use speculating. They simply had to sit and wait and let the emergency services do their job.

  No one could sleep. They all sat round the kitchen table, fretting. Isabel had returned with Mr Hughes and was resting in a downstairs room on a makeshift divan. The power had not returned, so they were making do with candles again. Mr Hughes lit fires in some of the major rooms, but they were battling with the cold on all fronts.

  As the two families went about their business, lighting fires and dealing with the current state of emergency and the loss of power, Eliza watched from the shadows. She saw Granny tucking Isabel up under a blanket. She saw Charles and Fiona search the library upstairs, the landing and the attics, probing into places they had never noticed before. She saw them watch and worry and listen for every sound, hoping against hope that it was the boys returning.

  She ran along the top landing of the house, a pattering of feather-light footsteps, and laughed to herself. Fiona and Charles heard her – or thought they heard her – and raised their heads briefly.

  Nodding at Charles, Fiona stood up and went to investigate.

  Her brother followed her and they stood beside the old grandfather clock, staring up into the dark void of the house above, before starting to climb the spiralling staircase.

  “Did you hear that noise earlier?” Fiona whispered.

  Charles nodded.

  Fiona looked resolute. “It was her. I’m sure of it.”

  “D’you think the adults heard it?”

  Fiona shook her head. “They’re too worked up to notice anything. I’m going to find her. She must know where Samuel and Sebastian are.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Isn’t it obvious? She told Samuel about the graveyard in the first place … remember? Maybe she can help us by telling us where to look.”

  Although they hadn’t realized it, Lucy, Fiona’s favourite Labrador, had followed them up the stairs. They took comfort from this. She had always been an excellent guard dog, warning them of any unseen presence. She would take care of them. With slow but intrepid determination, they mounted the stairs in darkness.

  As they reached the upstairs landing, the dog began to release a low ominous growl. Fiona put her fingers into Lucy’s fur and gently comforted her. “It’s alright, girl. Nothing to worry about.”

  She kept her hand on Lucy’s neck and they crept along the deserted corridor.

  The house seemed unnaturally quiet. No sign of life anywhere.

  Not for the first time it occurred to Fiona that she’d prefer to live in Samuel’s tiny cottage, with its manageable spaces, rather than this great lofty pile with its unopened doors and huge empty rooms. She loved Dunadd, but sometimes it frightened her too.

  They encouraged Lucy to accompany them as they approached the drawing room. A floorboard creaked inside the far room.

  “What was that?” Charles hissed.

  “We know you’re here,” Fiona uttered to the shadows around them. But there was no answering whisper.

  The house had always made strange noises in the night, ever since she could remember: radiators ticking – when the power was connected, that is; floorboards and doors creaking; the boiler firing up; mice scuttling about behind the wooden panelling or up in the attic. It was just the normal night-time activity of any old house.

  They pushed the door open and crossed the drawing room. Lucy suddenly pulled away from Fiona’s grasp. They heard her claws clicking against the wooden floorboards. The dog stood near the half-open door of the library, ears flattened, body tense and growling.

  Fiona and Charles followed her, and slowly pushed the library door wider. It creaked eerily on its hinges, sending shivers down their spines. Suddenly, they heard another scurry of movement. Eliza stood behind the desk, as if using it as a shield or barrier between herself and them. She stared at them across the room, her eyes bright and fiery … feverish. There was a challenge in those eyes, as if daring them to defy her, to take her on. After all, they were given to thinking the worst of her and she knew it. She didn’t care what they thought now. Let them think what they liked.

  Fiona got straight to the point. “Our brother, Sebastian, and Samuel … do you know where they are?”

  Charles put a steadying hand on Fiona’s arm, warning her not to antagonize Eliza. It would do no good to upset her.

  Eliza put her head on one side, as if she did not understand the question. “Why dost thou ask me that?”

 
“They went to try and find your grave,” Fiona persisted. “You and your brother’s. They haven’t come home. Where did you send them?”

  “I sent them nowhere,” Eliza replied. “Why dost thou accuse me? Thou art very impertinent to say so.”

  Fiona stared at the little girl in disbelief, this pathetic but ghostly apparition which hovered before them, causing mischief and yet purporting to be innocent of any crime.

  “They could be in trouble,” Fiona cried. “They could be dead.”

  Eliza stared back.

  “There’s a blizzard out there,” Fiona went on. “If they don’t come home tonight, they may never come home again.”

  The little girl’s face had turned serious, realization slowly dawning. “I canst tell thee not where they are. I know not.”

  “But you can tell us where the graveyard is?”

  “Which one?”

  “The one where you were buried … beside the little chapel on the moor. The chapel, which is now a ruin.”

  Eliza looked blank. “I know not where we were buried. It is not certain we were buried at all. It is all so confusing in my mind. Thou makest me sad, speaking so …”

  The little girl had a way of melting back into the shadows, making herself invisible on a whim.

  “Wait. Don’t go,” Fiona begged. “We need to find them. We need you to help us.”

  But Eliza had not disappeared. She was beckoning to someone invisible, who lurked near the secret entrance in the fireplace.

  “John,” she muttered. “Come out where they can see you.”

  “No, I dare not,” a boy’s voice whimpered, so quietly that Fiona and Charles weren’t sure if they had heard him.

  “John, wouldst thou have them take you for a coward?” Eliza demanded, more impatiently this time.

  “Yes,” came a small voice in reply.

  Fiona looked past her into the shadows and gloom of the library, but she could see nothing of a ghost boy, too frightened and nervous to show himself. But she heard his next words clearly.

  “Eliza, let us go back to our room.”

  “What room?” Fiona demanded, quick as a flash.

  “The room they boarded up …” Eliza said, “after we died.”

  “How do we get to that room?” Charles asked.

  “Thou canst not,” Eliza said simply. “Not unless thou becomst like us. It is on the other side.”

  “The other side of what?” Fiona begged.

  What terrible secrets did these mysterious ghostly children, forlorn and forgotten, have in their possession? Fiona longed to ask them about it, but part of her was afraid to know the answer.

  “Thy mother will have to leave this house,” the girl predicted, staring at Fiona with grim satisfaction. “Tell her, John,” she cried, her voice becoming shrill. “Tell her what will happen.”

  “I do not know what will happen, Eliza,” a small disembodied voice whimpered. “I want to go back to bed, to sleep, until the nightmare be over … at last.”

  “Why did they board up the room you died in?” Fiona insisted.

  “Because they wanted to forget,” Eliza hissed. “They wanted to forget Eliza Morton and her brother, John, because of what happened to us. But we have always been here. Waiting.”

  There was a terrible silence, while Fiona and her brother allowed these awful words to sink in.

  “Waiting for what?” she asked.

  But Eliza refused to answer. She turned and left the room, leading her brother by the hand. For a brief moment, Fiona saw them both as dim outlines. The boy was much smaller than his sister, more vulnerable-looking; his face was peevish and sad.

  “You haven’t told us where they are …”

  A faint voice replied, “Worry not. It is not their time. They will return.”

  Then they were gone.

  Eliza and John made their way back to their secret lair: their refuge. The little boy sat down on the dusty floor and began to play with his wooden soldiers again. Cobwebs draped the beds like a shawl to keep the ghosts warm. Ruined books spilled out from the one bookshelf, their leaf-brown pages spotted with mildew and damp, almost unreadable.

  John glanced across at his older sister with eyes that were forever mournful.

  “I do not feel very well,” he whimpered softly.

  Eliza ignored him.

  The boy shivered inside his loose cotton shift. Ghosts were not supposed to feel the cold, but John felt it all the time. He remembered how his mother had left him alone so often with Eliza and wished now that she had been around more; that she had comforted him the way he had seen Chris Morton comfort her children in the rooms downstairs. Eliza and he had always been alone. For almost as long as he could remember. There had been a time before, when more people had been around. He recalled it dimly, but the memories were getting fainter and fainter. This is the way it would always remain now. Just he and Eliza, alone in the shadowy gloom of a house that grew more decrepit with age and was filled with echoes from a past that only they could hear.

  An Empty Graveyard

  A stiff breeze blew across the surface of the snow, whipping up powdery spirals that danced and zigzagged towards them. The two boys stared out at the frozen wastes, afraid to admit to each other that they were well and truly lost. The hills around them were eerily empty. The lowering cloud had removed all landmarks, and the blizzard had obliterated all trace of their own footsteps, so that they couldn’t even see where they had come. They had come too far and they knew it. They had disobeyed the sensible rules of conduct, which apply when it comes to walking in the Scottish hills. People died up here. Both boys knew this.

  Samuel breathed on his gloved fingers to keep them warm, glancing across at Sebastian.

  They wandered about helplessly for a bit, making sure not to lose sight or hold of each other, for that would have been fatal indeed. To be alone in this frozen waste did not bear thinking about. They had obviously wandered in the wrong direction when the blizzard came down, and had strayed further and further from Dunadd.

  “I haven’t got a clue where we are,” Sebastian called.

  “Me neither. Maybe when the blizzard clears …” Samuel suggested vaguely.

  But the weather didn’t seem to want to oblige. It had no intention of blowing itself out, but raged on and on, until a new threat lingered. It began to get dark. Night was fast approaching.

  “We need to find somewhere to shelter,” Sebastian stated.

  Samuel nodded, too weary and exhausted to do anything else.

  They struggled on through the anonymous landscape, aware that they were much higher than they should be. Sebastian knew he had a box of matches in his pocket. He could feel it digging into his trouser leg. If they could just find somewhere to shelter. He regretted now leaving the graveyard behind and the little ruined chapel. They could have sought refuge inside its walls, broken as they were. It would at least have offered some respite, from the wind and the chill.

  Suddenly he was aware that Samuel had stopped. For one awful moment, he panicked, thinking he’d lost him.

  “What? What is it?”

  “Look here,” Samuel called. He had almost missed it as they waded through the swirling eddying curtain of snow, but here, set in the hillside, was an overhang of rock, and beneath it was a cave.

  They ventured inside and immediately found themselves somewhat protected from the biting wind. The snow was falling in such a way that it didn’t penetrate the opening. They struggled further in on their hands and knees. Neither spoke. This was survival at its worst. They knew their lives depended on their own skill, and both of them were concentrating on seeing out the night without perishing in the cold. Sebastian took out the box of matches with trembling fingers. Samuel watched him in silence, then found some brushwood at the back of the cave … just enough to start a fire. Sebastian struggled to handle the spindly sticks, but finally the match took, and he held the tiny flame to the gathered scrub and rubbish in the corner, whatever they co
uld salvage for a fire. It flared up for a few seconds, then crackled away merrily. The boys huddled close, the bright light playing over their faces in the gloom.

  “It won’t last long,” Sebastian said.

  In response, Samuel pulled another bundle of tinder from the back. At some point, someone had cleared the land nearby of bracken and fern, thorn and scrub, dumping it unceremoniously at the back of the cave. Either that, or it had been swept there over time, by wind and weather, after the local shepherd had left the stuff in a tidy pile. It’s what usually happened with anything left lying on the moor.

  The boys were miserable and frightened.

  “You know what it says in my survival handbook, don’t you?” Samuel said. “We need each other’s body warmth to stay alive.”

  They wrapped their arms about each other, and tended the little fire as best they could.

  “And we mustn’t fall asleep,” Sebastian warned. “Whatever you do, don’t close your eyes.”

  But it was hard not to, with the fusty warmth beginning to fill the cave. The rocky overhang protected them from the worst of the bitter wind, but they were frozen. Their mutual body warmth was helping. They just had to survive the night.

  “If we can make it till morning,” Sebastian said, “the blizzard might have stopped, and we can find our way home.”

  But the morning seemed a million miles away, and meanwhile they felt utterly desolate, wondering if they would ever see their homes again, or if they would die here, mummified in a frozen tomb until someone found them in the spring.

  When dawn at last penetrated their temporary den, they couldn’t believe they had made it. They were still alive. Back at the house, they knew their families must be fearing the worst, for who could survive a night like that out in the open? It was still early. The sun rose above the edge of the moor, chasing the shadows away and sparkling on the blanket of snow, which rippled and undulated as far as the eye could see. The rising sun stained the far hills pink and blue, and even in their terrible state, they couldn’t help noticing its beauty. It was a miraculous dawn for the two boys.