Chill Page 3

  It looked a comforting sight, the huge old room filled with flickering firelight, but Samuel was still tormented by what he had seen last night. There had been something – or someone – in that mirror that he didn’t wish to see again.

  Fiona smiled when she saw him. “How’s your mum coping without electricity?”

  “Not well. She likes her creature comforts, even though it was her idea to move here in the first place.”

  “Parents, huh?”

  “Your mum looks quite good at coping in a crisis.”

  “Yeah,” Fiona conceded. “She’s had to, I suppose, since Dad died. Running this place and everything.” Samuel felt the flames hot on his face, contrasting sharply with the chill of the rest of the room.

  “How old were you when he died?”

  “About three. It was a long time ago. I don’t remember him all that well.”

  There was a thoughtful silence. Samuel glanced up at the closed door of the library. Fiona followed his gaze. “We’re not allowed in there. It’s out of bounds.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know. Another one of Mum’s rules.”

  She stared into the flames for a moment, then added “Actually, I do know why. It’s because my dad died in there. It was his room, you see. He used to love working in there, reading books and painting pictures. It’s filled with his stuff. Stuff we’ve never thrown out … things he painted, that kind of thing. Books he liked to read. Mum’s really odd about it.”

  Samuel gazed at the closed door. “How did he …?”

  She answered him before he could finish. “He died of shock. He saw something … I don’t know what … and he had a weak heart. The doctors said it wouldn’t have taken much to send him on his way.”

  “I could show you the room if you like?” she added, glancing furtively over her shoulder.

  She approached the library door, and tentatively pushed it open. Cold air swept in from the closed-off room, where no fire had been lit. Samuel followed her, gazing up at the high walls lined with leather-bound books and paintings.

  “What if someone catches us?” he whispered.

  “It’s okay,” Fiona hissed.

  In the centre of the room was a green leather-topped desk, where some of her father’s things were carefully displayed, untouched, as if in a museum. A blotter, an old-fashioned fountain pen and bottle of ink, as well as a jar full of pens and biros. There were books everywhere. The smell of old books and soft leather filled the room.

  “This is where he died,” Fiona said softly, running her finger along the desk.

  Samuel eyed the place apprehensively.

  “You know last night,” he said, “when we were all in there?” He nodded his head towards the room next door. “I saw something … in the mirror. The figure of a woman in a long gown, with black hair. She was staring at me.”

  Fiona was listening to him intently, her eyes wide.

  “When I turned round, there was no one there,” he finished.

  Instead of exclaiming with shock as he expected her to, she simply nodded her head.

  “She’s come back then,” was all she said.

  Before Samuel could respond a loud buzzing noise suddenly filled their ears, and the lights sprang on in the next room.

  “Thank God,” they heard a voice cry from several rooms away. “The power’s back on.”

  The house hummed into life; lamps glowed, radiators started to tick as the vast boiler heated them up again.

  “Come on,” Fiona whispered. “Let’s get out of here before my mum catches us.”

  Back in the cottage, Samuel found his mother bent over the stove, trying to get it roaring again.

  “Granny Hughes was right when she said this thing has a mind of its own,” she mumbled, her cheeks bright red with exertion. She was wearing a jumper that was several sizes too big for her, and there was a smear of soot across her face. “How was next door?” she asked.

  “All right.” He plucked an apple from the fruit bowl and began to munch it. “They’re not that friendly,” he admitted. “At least, Fiona is, but her brothers are a bit strange. They keep their distance.”

  “Try to be patient with them,” Isabel advised, sitting back on her heels for a moment, poker in hand. “I don’t think they’re all that happy somehow.”

  “What d’you mean?”

  She shrugged. “I don’t know. I can just tell. They lost their father, remember.”

  “That was ages ago,” Samuel said.

  “Yes, but it’s obviously had a profound effect on them.”

  Then she bent down, and began attacking the heart of the stove with the poker.

  Samuel thought about the empty library full of shadows and old books, seemingly unchanged since Fiona’s father had died. There was a mystery to this place, an undefined feeling of unfinished business.

  Charles stood at his window, and stared blankly at the frozen world outside. His room was high up in the tower. Far below he could see the gardens and grounds mapped out beneath him, blanketed in swirling snow. He’d heard Samuel downstairs with Fiona earlier, and had thought about coming down, but had then decided not to. Why had his mother rented the cottage to the Cunninghams, when they had been perfectly all right on their own? Charles didn’t like strangers. They made him nervous. He was used to having the whole of Sheriffmuir to himself, its empty hills and sparkling forests and breathtaking views. He didn’t like having to share it, or admit someone else into his territory.

  “Charles? Seb?” He could hear Fiona calling him from downstairs.

  After a few minutes he heard her footsteps on the twisting stone staircase in the tower. She appeared in the doorway and pushed it open.

  “Power’s back on,” she said.

  “I noticed.”

  He was sitting at his computer now, which had hummed back into life when the electricity was restored.

  “Why didn’t you come down when Samuel was here?”

  Charles shrugged. He didn’t really know the answer himself.

  “He’s lonely, I think,” Fiona said. “He just wants some company. He must be missing all his friends in Edinburgh.”

  “Not my problem,” Charles said shortly.

  “Charles!” she scolded. “It wouldn’t hurt you to be friendly.”

  “It just makes me nervous, that’s all. A stranger snooping about the place.”

  “Snooping?”

  “I heard you go in the library,” Charles said.

  “I was only showing him round. There’s nothing wrong with that. And you and Sebastian went in there last night.”

  “Yes, but Mum knew we were doing it.”

  “And that makes it all right, does it?”

  “Well, at least I didn’t take a stranger in there.”

  “Samuel’s not a stranger. He’s a friend.”

  She made as if to leave, and then paused. “He’s here to stay, so you may as well get used to him.”

  Charles listened to her footsteps descending the narrow stone staircase. Then he turned back to the computer screen, and stared at it angrily.

  “We’ll see about that,” he muttered to himself.

  It was the dead of night. The whole house was sleeping, filled with a familiar eerie silence, punctuated only by the rhythmic ticking of the grandfather clock in the hall below.

  Up in the tower, where the boys had their rooms, Charles lay on his bed, his face twitching with the thoughts and dreams that raced across his inner-eye. Pale moonlight found its way in through the narrow window and pierced the gloom.

  Suddenly Charles sat up in bed and let out a cry.

  He’d woken from a terrible dream; a nightmare. A woman had appeared in the room before him – not as a vague outline, but as if she were really standing there on the rug beside his bed – and had fixed him with her heavy dark eyes. “I – will – get – you,” she whispered.

  He blinked wildly and looked about him, wide awake now, his ashen face beaded with sweat.
He shook his head, wondering if he’d only imagined it.

  Mysterious Neighbours

  Day after day blizzards roared across the country, bringing towns and cities to a halt. No one could leave Dunadd. They were completely isolated, with no prospect of escape. The moor was unrecognizable, like an Arctic wasteland. The whole of Sheriffmuir lay under a thick blanket, which all but silenced the rushing of the Wharry Burn. The Burn itself had become like glass, caught in strange fantastical shapes.

  Even Mrs Morton said she had never seen anything like it, in eighteen years of living at Dunadd.

  “I wonder how they’re coping down at Lynns Farm?” Granny commented, staring out of the window. “MacFarlane will have enough to do, clearing the snow from his yard. And he’s hardly young.”

  Mrs Morton gave her a strange look and left the room.

  After she’d gone, Granny Hughes shook her head and sighed. “Don’t say I didn’t try! You would have thought she’d look out for her own neighbour.”

  Samuel looked up, mystified.

  “Who?”

  “MacFarlane, down at Lynns Farm. You’ll have seen the house. Down by the waterfall?”

  Samuel shook his head.

  “Ach well, I suppose you cannot see it all that well ‘cos of all the trees round about it. It’s hidden away, right enough.”

  Fiona looked up from her plate. “That’s another of Mum’s weird rules. She doesn’t like us going there.”

  “Had a disagreement with him once,” Granny went on. “Don’t know what that was about, but she won’t hear mention of him again. Her nearest neighbour too. Her only neighbour in fact. I daren’t suggest one of us going along to see if he’s all right in all this snow.”

  Charles, who was sitting at the other end of the table, looked up and met Samuel’s eye. “He’s meant to be off his head,” he informed him, with a touch of glee.

  Samuel turned and stared at the frozen grounds of Dunadd beyond the kitchen window, icicles hanging like daggers from the sill. It was one more mystery to add to the many surrounding this place.

  After a week of raging blizzards, the moor at last fell silent. Samuel woke up one morning and realized that the wind had stopped howling.

  Big flakes of snow fell out of the sky, feathering the dry-stone walls. Samuel shovelled lumps of coal into the tin bucket, listening to the sudden stillness outside. Poking his head out of the barn door, he thought how beautiful Dunadd looked. All around him the branches of the trees had frozen solid, reaching out white fingers of glass that looked as if they would shatter in any breeze, or chime like musical bells. The world looked strangely magical. Stones and fenceposts were capped with ice. At the end of the garden stood a small fir tree, its branches bent with snow, and Samuel realized with a pang of affection that it had already become a familiar landmark of home. Whenever he looked out of their sitting room window, he could see that tree, beside the crumbling stonewall.

  The coal bucket was a heavy load to drag back to the cottage, and he stopped half-way to listen to the silence.

  As he stood there, an odd feeling overcame him. It was as if he were no longer alone. Surrounded by the loneliness of the moor he had the sensation that he was being watched.

  He looked down at the snow at his feet. A long shadow had thrown itself in front of him, which meant that someone was standing right behind him. He spun round. As he did so, the shadow vanished. Leading away from him were footprints in the snow, as crisp and clear as if they had just been made. They led in a long line away from him, and stopped in the middle of the lawn. Then … nothing.

  All around him silent snow-covered trees stood sentinel. He peered into the darkness between the dense pine forest to his left, then across at the barn to his right. Nothing. Just him in all this emptiness.

  Was someone playing a trick on him?

  He shook his head, picked up the heavy bucket of coal, and made his way back to the cottage. His footsteps crunching in the snow were the only sound.

  I am definitely going insane, he thought.

  Charles stood in the snow, and watched Samuel disappear inside the cottage. He glanced around him, a hunted look on his face. He was nervous, edgy. He had been watching Samuel from the darkness of the trees for the past ten minutes or so, standing under the snow-laden branches, his feet frozen into blocks of ice. He’d watched Samuel emerge with the coal bucket and make his way to the barn where the coal was stored. Then he had seen him stand in the middle of the lawn and listen to the unearthly silence and stillness of the moor. But there was someone else watching as well, and Charles could feel her presence. He was haunted here in his own home where he was supposed to feel safe; haunted by threats and dire warnings that interrupted his sleep. He shook his head. It had just been a stupid dream, he told himself; it meant nothing. But as he stood there in the snow he sensed the dark-clad figure somewhere behind him, outside his line of vision. He spun round, but the figure moved and vanished, quick as lightning. It simply melted back into the darkness of the forest.

  Despite the cold he felt himself beginning to sweat. Hands in pockets, he made his way back to the house. From the trees the dark figure continued to watch him. He could feel her eyes drilling into his back, but refused to look round a second time, not wanting to show that he was frightened, or that he knew she was there … Maybe if he pretended she didn’t exist, she would simply go away …

  Strange Noises

  It was later that same day that Samuel first heard the Weeping Woman in the drawing room of Dunadd House. He had the place to himself and was attempting to copy the drawing of the map on the window seat when he was disturbed by her footsteps crossing the room. Afterwards he was badly shaken. His mother came home later that afternoon to find him outside, too afraid to go back into the house. He hadn’t finished his drawing, but preferred not to do it while the house was empty and made odd sounds, he said.

  “All old houses make strange noises,” she told him, trying to reassure him. “Doors bang in the wind, radiators creak and wood settles. It’s just what old houses do.”

  He said he didn’t want to talk about it any more, and decided to go and wait in the kitchen for the Mortons to come home, which they did at teatime, just as it was beginning to get dark. Granny Hughes had emerged from her room, and was back at her post in the kitchen, fretting that the whole family would be lost if they stayed out much longer. Lettuce the rabbit was still hopping about the worktop, which seemed to put Granny into an even worse temper.

  “Be blessed if I don’t cook that rabbit one day, by mistake,” she muttered under her breath, wiping down the counter where the rabbit had just walked. “Wretched thing! It’ll be giving us all E. Coli, so it will.” Worry was fraying her nerves.

  At last there came the sound of skis clattering in the boot room, and doors banging. Mrs Morton appeared, her cheeks crimson with exertion.

  “Well, that was quite something,” she breathed ecstatically, wrestling herself out of her padded jacket. “Didn’t get as far as the village though. Bit too far.”

  Samuel watched them enviously, wondering what it would be like to be part of a “team” or “clan,” with numbers on your side, instead of just him and his mum. He wished now he’d agreed to borrow a pair of skis and go with them, instead of staying at Dunadd to draw his stupid map.

  “It was great fun,” Sebastian enthused, which only made Samuel feel worse.

  “Maybe next time you can come with us?” Mrs Morton suggested.

  “I can’t ski,” Samuel reminded her.

  “We can teach you. It’s all a matter of confidence and trust.”

  “Or falling over on your backside and maybe breaking a leg,” Charles added.

  Mrs Morton shot him a sharp look.

  He ignored her and flopped into the nearest chair. “I’m dying of hunger,” he groaned.

  Granny fetched them something to eat, and suddenly the kitchen was filled with the noise and bustle of the family. Samuel felt oddly comforted by it. It was
hard to believe this was the same house as a few hours earlier, when he had run from the drawing room in a blind panic, to escape the sound of the Weeping Woman as she paced the upstairs rooms.

  “So,” Charles said, eyeing Samuel across the table as he sipped his soup. “Did he get his map finished, that’s what we’re all asking ourselves?”

  Samuel avoided his eye.

  “Charles, I wish you wouldn’t speak to Samuel like that,” Fiona cut in.

  “Like what?”

  “I didn’t manage to finish it, as a matter of fact,” Samuel said suddenly, glancing at the others.

  Charles watched him intently.

  “Why not?”

  “I was disturbed.” And he let the sentence hang on the air. The others looked at him expectantly, but he didn’t bother to elaborate. When the boys had disappeared upstairs Fiona leant across the table towards him.

  “What happened?” she asked.

  “Nothing,” he mumbled.

  “Come on,” she said. “I wasn’t born yesterday.”

  He swallowed. “I heard her.”

  Fiona stared at him, wide-eyed.

  “Mum said it was probably just the radiators creaking. Old houses do that, she said, make noises and things. But it wasn’t that. I heard her footsteps clearly. She walked up the stairs, through the drawing room and then into the library. And all the time I could hear her sobbing.”

  Fiona laid her soup spoon down in the bowl. “What are we going to do?” she hissed.

  “I don’t know.”

  Upstairs in his room, in the tower, Charles switched on the computer and sat down at his desk. He felt restless. The darkness outside pressed against the window pane, and he could see nothing below. He loved having a room up here. It meant that most of the time he and Seb had complete privacy. They could hear anyone on the stone staircase long before they reached the landing. It was a bit of a nuisance now that Granny Hughes and her husband were staying in the spare room for Christmas, the room that usually remained empty. Granny didn’t like staying in that room. She claimed she heard noises in the night, although nobody took much notice of her. She was always nervous, anyway. Wasn’t used to big houses. Said so herself. The rest of the time he and Sebastian had the whole tower to themselves. It felt almost medieval, although it wasn’t. It still had the original stone staircase, twisting round and round the thick stone walls. Charles kept thinking about what Samuel had said at the supper table, and about his dream of the other night, the woman with the dark eyes hissing the words “I – will – get – you,” at him. Should he tell the others? What would be the point of that? No one would believe him anyway. He barely believed it himself. He got up and went to his brother’s room.