Chill (3 page)

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 …

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.

Sebastian was stretched out on the bed, as unconcerned as ever. Nothing seemed to worry him. Charles envied him that. He leaned against the doorpost, frowning.

“What d’you think disturbed him?”

Sebastian looked up, puzzled. “Who?”

“Samuel, of course. Who d’you think?”

His brother shrugged. “I don’t know. He looked a bit pale, though.”

“I’d love to know what it was,” Charles said.

“We could ask him?”

“Not likely. He might tell Fiona about it, though,” Charles added softly, thinking out loud to himself.

“We could ask Fiona then.”

Charles shook his head. “She’d never tell us.”

Sebastian watched his brother in silence for a minute.

“Why does it bother you so much?”

“What?”

“Samuel, living in the cottage.”

“It doesn’t!”

“Yes it does. You act all the time like he’s some kind of threat.”

Charles didn’t answer at once. He looked at his brother, and for a brief moment thought about telling him about what had been happening to him lately. But the moment didn’t last long. Charles wasn’t used to confiding in anyone, least of all some story about a weird woman who appeared to him in his dreams at night, hissing dark threats.

“He’s snooping around,” Charles said instead. “I just know he is. Why was he alone in the house in the first place?”

“He was copying the map!”

“I know that, but … oh, never mind.”

Leaving Sebastian alone, he went back to his own room to brood.

On the lawn beneath him the outside security light had clicked on, and flooded the snowy garden. Charles leant closer to the glass until his breath misted it, and peered down. Far below he could see two tiny figures, wrapped up in coats and boots, making their way under the trees. What were they talking about, he wondered? He watched until they disappeared, swallowed up by the surrounding darkness.

“Will we ever be able to get out of here, do you think?” Samuel said, kicking at the nearest snowdrift.

“It might take a while. Unless the Council can be bothered to send up a snowplough, and that doesn’t seem very likely.”

They stood under the trees in the dark, the white snow beneath them barred with shadows.

“Mum’s pestered them on the phone every day,” she went on, “but they say they have other priorities.”

“So that’s it,” Samuel said. “We’re stuck!”

“I thought you said it would be a good thing,” she reminded him.

“That was before I realized this place was haunted.”

“Mum wouldn’t like to hear you say that. She always insists there is no ghost at Dunadd.”

“Does she?”

Fiona nodded. “I heard her once at a dinner party. There was this awkward silence afterwards. None of the guests knew what to say. I remember it really well. I felt sorry for the person who said it – she gave them a right ticking off. Mum can do that, without really saying very much at all. She can make you feel
this
big.” She held up her hand, and closed the gap between finger and thumb.

The pair of them were silent for a moment, thinking about the guests at the dinner party, and Fiona’s mother getting cross with whoever had been foolish enough to enquire about “the ghost story.” Samuel could imagine it, could picture the scene in the dining room of Dunadd House, the guests all sitting round the huge mahogany table, fire and candlelight flickering on the wooden panels behind them. Granny Hughes
serving everyone with a quiet disgruntled subservience, using the best silver, which usually sat untouched on the sideboard, polished religiously every other day by Mr Hughes.

“There must be more we could find out about this Weeping Woman,” Samuel insisted, glancing across at the dark mass of the house, one or two lights winking in the windows. It threw a massive shadow forward onto the snow. In the big bay window of the drawing room they could see the Christmas tree glittering in the dark.

“Maybe something in the library will tell us more,” he added.

Fiona gave him a sharp look. “Not possible. Mum doesn’t like us going in there without her permission. It makes her nervous. You know that.”

“There must be a way,” he murmured. “What about at night?”

“You realize you’ll be evicted from the cottage, if Mum catches you at it?”

He shrugged his shoulders. “That’s why I need your help.”

She rolled her eyes. “What have I done to deserve this?”

They looked at each other in the dark as if they had just struck a bargain.

“We can be partners in crime,” he whispered.

While Samuel and Fiona were making their plans, Charles was alone with his own worries. That night, after dark, he took up his torch and crept down the winding stone staircase of the tower to the first-floor landing below. He pushed open the door of the drawing room, sensing rather than seeing the shadows retreat before him. This dark house held no secrets
for him, it was his home.

Or did it?

Charles crossed the drawing room and made his way to the forbidden library at the far end. He had seen and heard Fiona and Samuel snooping about in there the other day. If there were anything to find in that room then he, Charles, would be the one to find it and no one else. Samuel had no right, he fumed, no business … It was their house, not his; it was their sorrow, their loss. Any secrets or mysteries contained within its walls were theirs to bear, a private legacy that belonged only to them, the Morton children.

He crossed the dark room to the green leather-topped writing desk in the centre. There it stood, largely untouched since the day his father died. He guessed that if there were anything worth seeing here, his mother would have confiscated it by now, secreted it away in some private hiding place, but it was worth a try. He bent down and began to search. The writing desk shuddered as he pulled open each drawer. Lots of papers burst from the drawers, old receipts and bills that had never been tidied or cleared away – his mother was not very good at throwing things out.

When he found his father’s letter, written on the day he died, he sat back in the chair and stared at it for a long time. He shone the beam of the torch on it, reading the last words his father had written, then slid the letter into his pocket and carried it away with him, back to his room.