Shiverton Hall, the Creeper (24 page)

‘Jake,’ Arthur said, shaking his friend. ‘Are you all right?’

Jake grabbed Arthur’s hands, with more force than Arthur had thought humanly possible, and threw him back on to the sofa.

‘Jake isn’t here,’ Jake said, in a flat, strange voice.

There was a scratch at the door.

‘Oh, goody!’ Ma Watkins said. ‘Now the fun really starts!’

‘Who is that?’ Arthur said.

‘That is Farrus’s twin. Dear, pale Peter. A strange boy. He has always been my favourite.’

‘Peter?’

Ma Watkins laughed. ‘You have come to know him rather well these past few weeks, I think, or at least, he has come to know you.’

‘Scracchenshodderen,’ Arthur whispered.

‘He has so enjoyed watching you,’ Ma Watkins said, as the scratching grew louder.

‘And do you know why I love Peter so? Even more than my other children?’ She sang.

‘Why?’ Arthur asked, already dreading the answer.

‘Because Peter was always the cleverest. He didn’t bother himself with bodies. Bodies rot. No, Peter chose something else.’

‘What?’ Arthur whispered.

‘Why, souls, of course!’ Ma Watkins cried gleefully. ‘He gathers the souls of children. Pure, sweet souls never fester or perish. Only Peter saw that.’

‘Yeah,’ Arthur said, ‘well, not for long!’

He reached back and pulled something out of his pyjama pocket.

‘What are you doing?’ Ma Watkins asked.

Arthur brought out the burned book. ‘This is his object, right?’ he said, waving it at Ma Watkins.

Ma Watkins smiled.

Arthur walked over to the fire. ‘I’ll throw it in,’ Arthur said, holding the book over the flames.

‘Be my guest,’ Ma Watkins said.

Arthur called her bluff and tossed the book on the fire.

Ma Watkins sighed and walked over to the fire, plucking the book from the flames, unharmed except for a smudge of ash.

‘Thank you for giving it back,’ she said, sweetly, and slotted it on to her bookshelf. ‘It’s not the book, you silly boy, it’s the name.’

Arthur watched in despair.

The scratching on the door grew louder.

‘I think we’d better let him in, don’t you?’ Ma Watkins asked.

The door flew open.

At first, Arthur could not see its face. The creature was so tall that the doorway could not accommodate it, and all Arthur could see was its bone-thin, ragged body. Its long, lily-white fingers curled around the doorframe and it hauled itself into the cottage.

Arthur looked at the face and felt the bile burning up his throat. Scracchenshodderen had no features, just a smooth, grey, glistening blank where a face should be.

‘Hello, my dear,’ Ma Watkins said.

‘I . . . I don’t understand,’ Arthur stammered. ‘He had a different face . . .’

Ma Watkins cackled. ‘Do you mean this one?’

The skin on Scracchenshodderen’s face began to distort and stretch, and features began to wriggle their way out of it, like a chick pushing its way out of an egg.

Soon Andrew’s face stared back at him, and then the face distorted again and Liam’s face appeared, churning out of the grey. The face mutated many times; some of the faces Arthur recognised, most of them he didn’t. Andrew’s face reappeared.

‘We’re all in here, Arthur,’ the creature said, a dozen voices speaking at once – all of the boys that Scracchenshodderen had hunted. ‘You’ll be joining us soon.’

‘No!’ Arthur cried.

‘You’ll enjoy it,’ the voices hissed.

‘There’s a good boy,’ Ma Watkins said.

‘All right,’ Arthur said. ‘I won’t struggle. I won’t even scream. Please just let Jake go.’

Farrus looked at Ma Watkins. ‘But I like this body,’ he said petulantly.

‘Please,’ Arthur begged. ‘Think of Rose and how terrible it was when Lord Shiverton took her.’

‘Shut up!’ Ma Watkins said.

‘Jake’s mother will miss him just as much as you miss her,’ he pleaded. ‘It’s me you want. Please, leave Jake out of it.’

Ma Watkins thought for a moment.

‘Why not?’ she said finally.

Farrus stamped his foot.

‘We don’t need that sickly boy,’ Ma Watkins said, dismissively gesturing to Jake’s thin body. ‘Join your brother. Shiverton blood will taste much better.’

Arthur watched as Scracchenshodderen gripped Farrus with his long fingers. Jake’s body began to shudder, and Farrus began to scream. After about a minute, a new face pushed itself out of Scracchenshodderen’s grey skin, and Jake fell back, landing in an unconscious heap on the floor.

‘Well,’ Ma Watkins said, ‘a deal’s a deal.’

Scracchenshodderen stood over Arthur and smiled. Arthur felt an agony like nothing he had ever experienced. It felt as though his blood was being sucked, cell by cell, out of every pore.

Arthur knew he must do something.

‘You say you steal souls?’ Arthur yelled. ‘Pure souls, children’s souls? Well why would you want mine? Mine isn’t pure.’

‘Don’t listen to him,’ Ma Watkins shouted.

Arthur closed his eyes and thought about the day by the reservoir. He thought about the time he attacked the bullies, the feeling of power, and of fury, and the hot blood on his hands.

He could feel Scracchenshodderen pull back, confused.

Arthur thought about the burned man and the way he had threatened Arthur’s family, and the way that Helena Strack had nearly killed Xanthe to get her hands on the painting. He thought about everything that had ever made him angry, the Forge triplets, Long-Pitt, Cornwall. Suddenly he felt his skin burning.

‘What’s going on?’ Ma Watkins screamed at her son. ‘Why haven’t you taken him?’

Scracchenshodderen staggered back and let go of Arthur.

‘Get him!’ Ma Watkins said.

Scracchenshodderen shook his head.

‘Well, if you won’t do it, then I’ll have to,’ Ma Watkins hissed. Arthur watched as the body of Mrs Todd fell to the floor, and Ma Watkins’s repulsive features appeared in Scracchenshodderen’s face. Her face was barely human at all, no more than a huge gaping mouth filled with rows of pointed teeth. The hands gripped Arthur and lifted him off the ground.

‘I’m going to enjoy this,’ Ma Watkins hissed.

‘Wait!’ Arthur said.

Scracchenshodderen paused.

‘What?’ Ma Watkins shouted.

‘This isn’t a fair fight,’ Arthur said, a plan crystallising in his mind.

‘Who said anything about fair?’ Ma Watkins’s gaping mouth screamed, as Scracchenshodderen’s grip tightened around him.

‘You say you’re the most powerful witch in the country,’ Arthur said, ‘so prove it. Pit yourself against me in a fair fight, and we’ll see who wins.’

Arthur grabbed Husband and Wife’s walking stick from the fireplace. ‘How about a game of dice?’ he asked.

Ma Watkins laughed, a screeching laugh that rippled through the house.

‘A game, then, Arthur Shiverton,’ she said. ‘A
fair
fight.’

Arthur screwed his eyes shut, and shook the cane. The dice began to rattle.

Ma Watkins continued to laugh her sputtering, hideous laugh.

‘You fool, Arthur!’ she said as the dice tumbled over one another. ‘The dice are fixed. As in life, evil always wins.’

The dice stopped. Arthur looked down.

‘The moon,’ he said. ‘Death.’

‘Just as I thought,’ Ma Watkins said, stepping towards Arthur once more.

‘Wait!’ Arthur said.

Ma Watkins paused.

‘I didn’t say whose death,’ Arthur said.

‘I know whose death! Yours!’ Ma Watkins screeched.

Arthur smiled and tipped the cane towards Ma Watkins so that she could see.

‘A dagger,’ Ma Watkins said disbelievingly. ‘It’s not possible.’

‘The enemy,’ Arthur said. ‘I think that means you.’

Scracchenshodderen’s body began to shake.

‘No!’ Ma Watkins roared. ‘I made those dice myself! It can’t be! Evil must win . . . It always wins.’

‘I would have thought that you would know better,’ Arthur said, feeling his blood boiling in his veins, ‘than to play a Shiverton in a game of evil.’

The scream that emitted from the creature was so loud that it shattered the windows of Rose Cottage. It began to shake. Arthur could see the lungs struggling behind the grey ribs. It clawed at its throat, choking.

‘No,’ Ma Watkins wheezed. ‘No!’

It staggered about, gasping for air, and then made one final grab for Arthur, with its sharp talons, pulling him close to its stinking, cavernous mouth. ‘I’ll get you, Arthur Shiverton,’ it hissed in Ma Watkin’s dry cackle. ‘We’ve only just begun.’

‘Good luck with that,’ Arthur sneered, and pushed it away. The creature gurgled and thrashed about, spraying Arthur with oleaginous, grey blood. It shuddered and, with a final gurgling cry, exploded, coating the room, and Arthur, in a hot, foul-smelling oil.

Arthur waited, stunned. He felt a stirring in the room beside him, and Jake sat up blearily, rubbing the sticky mess from his glasses.

‘What happened?’ Jake asked. ‘Where are we?’

There was another knock on the door.

‘Arthur!’ a voice yelled from outside. ‘Let us in!’

Arthur had never been more relieved to see the Forge triplets.

Chapter Twenty-three

Arthur had lost count of the number of times Toynbee had apologised.

‘You can leave early,’ Toynbee said. ‘I’d understand if you want to go home.’

Arthur shook his head. ‘There’s no need, sir.’ Arthur grinned. ‘Now that Ma Watkins is gone, the school is safe.’

‘Let us hope that is the case,’ Toynbee said. ‘Are you sure you’re all right, Arthur?’

‘Yes, sir,’ Arthur said. ‘It’s just . . .’

‘What?’

‘Well, that fortune teller in the magic shop, Alan, he told me that he saw something terrible in my future,’ Arthur said.

‘Well, it seems that he was right,’ Toynbee said. ‘You don’t get more terrible than what happened to you last night.’

‘No,’ Arthur agreed. ‘But he said that I was going to do something terrible.’

Toynbee frowned. ‘Arthur, you mustn’t feel guilty about what you did last night. It was necessary. They would have killed you.’

‘I know, sir,’ Arthur said. ‘But I don’t think that was what Alan meant. Something happened, while the Scracchenshodderen was trying to take me. I think he saw something too. It made him want to stop, to leave me alone.’

‘Arthur, we have had this conversation before. Just because you are a Shiverton, that does not mean there is something wrong with you.’

‘It only means that, in a game of dice, I am more evil than the darkest witch in the world.’

Toynbee did not reply.

‘I’d better get to Long-Pitt’s class,’ Arthur sighed. ‘There are no excuses for being late for her class. Even nearly being murdered by an ancient monster.’

On his way to Long-Pitt’s lesson, Arthur spotted the Forge triplets across the quad, and ran to thank them for coming to find him the night before.

‘Dan!’ Arthur called, but the triplets did not seem to hear him. ‘Oi, guys!’

Arthur reached them, and the triplets stopped.

‘I just wanted to say thank you,’ Arthur said, panting.

Dan frowned and looked around in an exaggerated way. ‘Can you hear anything, boys?’ he said. ‘I thought I just heard something.’

The other triplets sniggered and shook their heads.

‘Must have just been the wind,’ Dan said, looking straight into Arthur’s eyes.

‘What are you doing?’ Arthur said suspiciously.

‘Nothing at all, Scholarship,’ Dan said, cracking his knuckles. ‘Let’s just say our incentive to be nice to you no longer applies, so we can begin where we left off last term. Namely, with us hating your guts.’

‘What do you mean,
incentive
?’ Arthur asked.

Dan tapped his nose. ‘I’d say that’s none of your business,’ he sneered.

‘Long-Pitt made us,’ one of Dan’s brothers said. ‘She said we’d have straight As all term if we kept an eye on you. She seems to think we failed last night, so we’ve been relieved of our duties.’

‘What?’ Arthur asked.

Dan hit his brother on the side of the head. ‘Shut up, you imbecile,’ he hissed.

‘But Long-Pitt hates me,’ Arthur said, baffled.

‘Yeah, and so do we,’ Dan scoffed. ‘But everyone’s got their price, don’t they?’

Arthur watched Long-Pitt as she outlined Oscar Wilde’s main themes on the blackboard, his mind racing.

Penny was sitting beside Arthur and had been frantically writing him notes all through class; he already had about six pieces of paper in his pencil case scrawled in Penny’s writing with:
WHERE WERE YOU LAST NIGHT???
and
WHAT HAPPENED???
Arthur thought that it was probably too complicated a story to write in a note.