The Hunting Ground (9 page)

I stared in horror at Janey. ‘But I don’t understand,’ I said. ‘Why … why wasn’t he stopped?’

‘Because he was careful,’ Janey explained. ‘Cullayn owned several estates in this part of the country, and he made sure there was never more than a victim or two per season. Nothing too obvious. A drowning. Someone burning in a fire. A man falling unseen from his horse, and then crushed to death.’ Janey shrugged. ‘Some people just went missing. A wife disappears, but her husband is known to be violent. A young man vanishes, but so what? He was the ambitious type, and not liked anyway. Cullayn kept his eyes and ears open for opportunities like that.

‘But Sam became suspicious, and followed Cullayn one time,’ Janey went on. ‘Saw him hunting on the slope. There was still no proof, though. The woman involved just
disappeared
. It was Sam’s word against Cullayn’s. Sam himself disappeared shortly after. No one knows what happened to him, but I do.’ Janey shivered. ‘Cullayn brought him to the hunting ground. Welcomed him in his own special way.

‘That’s how Cullayn got caught, in fact,’ Janey
said. ‘He was so furious with Sam that he was careless, left clues. When people finally came to get Cullayn for Sam’s murder – they found no evidence he’d killed anyone else – Cullayn led them on a merry hunt all over the Glebe estate. They never found him.’ Janey clicked her fingers. ‘
Pff
. He vanished. Squirmed his way out of his hanging. But the children know where he went. Cullayn died inside the East Wing. An accident, actually.’ Janey smiled. ‘You see, he had a secret room inside one of the walls. While everyone was searching for him, Cullayn hid himself in there for months. He only slipped out at night to take food and water from stashes he’d set aside on the estate in case he got caught. From outside, the secret room was opened by a pressure point on the wall. But inside the room there was just a simple lever. Cullayn used it once too often. The lever snapped off, and he couldn’t fix it. He died of thirst, you’ll be pleased to hear.’

I followed Janey in a daze across the southern grounds. She stopped to peer sharply up at the main house. Letting go of my hand, she turned to face me.

‘Cullayn’s an incredibly dangerous spirit,’ she murmured. ‘Normally only the ghosts of children can remain with us in our world. Even for them it’s a hard thing to do, but for adults the pull of the other
side is too strong to resist. Their spirits leave quickly. Cullayn, though, built the Glebe estate out of his own brutal desires, and somehow he’s managed to keep himself here. And he’s still hunting.’

‘How?’

‘By encouraging children inside. Children like Eve. If he can capture her spirit at the point of death he can feed off her. Use her energy to boost his own. He’s stuck here for now, close to where he died. But if he can get energy from another ghost he might even be able to escape and carry on hunting beyond the Glebe estate.’ Janey pursed her lips. ‘The ghost children are constantly having to hide from Cullayn. They evade him by
staying still
. But doing that’s hard for them, Theo. They’re spirit-things. If the air moves they want to move with it. Cullayn looks for that motion when he drifts across the grounds.’

‘But why don’t they just leave?’ I asked.

‘I keep encouraging them to,’ Janey said. ‘To just go, pass on to the other side, get away from Cullayn. But they won’t. Not while he’s still here.’ Janey shivered as a breeze came up. ‘The truth is that the ghost children have been waiting all this time for someone like
me
to come along,’ she said quietly. ‘Someone able to hear and see them. That way they
can at least warn us. So far Cullayn hasn’t killed anyone since he died, but the ghost children think it’s only a matter of time before he does. And he seems to have taken a particular interest in Eve. He’s been more active than ever recently. The ghost children aren’t sure why. But they’re trying to protect you by warning me. Cullayn’s already influencing Eve. You’ve seen that. He can’t touch the living. Not physically. But he still has influence. He’s dead, but the hunt goes on. It’s all in the portraits. They’re calling Eve closer. Even if you can’t hear them, they’re whispering. And they’re inviting you, too, Theo.’

‘Me?’

‘Don’t pretend you haven’t caught yourself looking at them,’ Janey said. ‘Eve’s just easier to influence. That’s why Cullayn’s concentrating on her. But listen …’ Janey took a sharp breath. ‘Because of my talent, skill, whatever you want to call it, I’ve discovered something. I’ve realised I can do more than just warn people. I can be a weapon against Cullayn as well.’

‘A weapon?’

Janey nodded eagerly. ‘There are tricks, ways to pierce Cullayn’s little realm. Ways to attack him. I’m learning all the time. Things the ghost children can’t do, or won’t, but maybe
Ican
.’

Janey gave me an uncertain smile. ‘I’m going after him, Theo. I’m not ready yet, but I won’t let Cullayn hide forever. He’s like a snake, waiting inside the East Wing, biding his time. Eve offers him the promise of far more fresh energy than the ghost children can give him after all these years dead. To get it, Cullayn’s doing everything he can to make sure she dies within his reach. If he can take Eve’s spirit for himself he’ll become much more powerful. He’s still incredibly ambitious. He intends to leave this place and take his hunt to the wider world. That’s what Cullayn wants. To hunt forever, wherever he feels like it. But to get away from the Glebe estate he needs Eve dead. And he probably needs you, too.’

‘Me?’

‘Yes, you,’ Janey growled. ‘Stop thinking it’s only Eve’s who’s in danger. Adults are no good to Cullayn. He’ll kill your parents if he gets half the chance – he’ll do that just for fun – but their spirits slip too fast across the divide for him to capture their energy. There’s a moment of hesitation before the other side takes a child, though. It’s you and Eve he needs. Cullayn will have an opportunity then, at the point of death. He just has to be there when it happens. And to be sure of that he needs to
make it happen
.’ She gripped my arm. ‘No, it’s OK, don’t worry, I won’t
let him hurt either of you,’ she said. ‘So far Cullayn’s stayed away from me. I think it’s because he’s scared of what I can do to him. He feels safe tucked up in the East Wing, but why should he?’ She lifted her chin. ‘I’m going after him.’

15th November. That was a week ago. I wrote everything down and told Mum and Dad. I got Janey to talk to them as well. Did they take us seriously? Yes. Sort of. They asked a few locals about the history of the house and, apparently, though there aren’t any details, there
were
deaths long ago, and Vincent Cullayn was held responsible for at least one of them.

‘So you believe Janey, then?’ I asked Mum.

‘I believe at least one person was murdered here, yes,’ Mum said, choosing her words carefully. ‘That Janey believes Cullayn’s evil spirit is still here as well … yes, I can see Janey believes that, too. But I’m sorry, Theo. I know she’s convinced you, but as for Eve, all that strangeness over the East Wing’s stopped, hasn’t it? I’ve never seen her having more fun. She loves it here. I don’t think I’ve ever seen her happier.’

And the trouble is that Mum’s right. Eve’s totally changed. She’s drawing nice happy pictures again. No more wandering off to the East Wing, either. She’s
even taken to joining Mum in the lake every morning for a swim. Eve always hated water before but lately, even though it’s cold, she keeps wanting to paddle in the shallows. All this week she and Mum have been out there, splashing and laughing away.

Feeling a weight on his shoulder, Elliott glanced down. Ben was asleep against him. Perhaps the warmth of the room had made him drowsy. Or perhaps there were other reasons he would rather sleep than read on.

Elliott felt a force drawing his face to look up at the portraits on the walls. He resisted it, turning back to the last page of the diary.

24th November. Janey was forced to go away for a week to visit relatives with her parents. As soon as she got back I told her about Eve’s new interest in swimming. She immediately rushed me up to an annex on the second floor of the main house. There’s a portrait of Cullayn up there in a side room. I’d never seen it before. In the painting Cullayn’s wearing long striped shorts, and proudly holding up a swimming trophy.

‘His own competition,’ Janey scoffed. ‘He held it every year. He tended to win. Cullayn swam every day on the lake. Sam Cosgrove says he often went
for a swim before a hunt as well. A cleansing ritual.’

I found myself peering closely at the picture. It was fascinating the life-like way the water was dripping from Cullayn’s red beard, the drops glistening, clinging to his chin, almost as if …

‘Don’t!’ Janey stepped in front of me. ‘See? See!’ She snapped her fingers in my face. ‘I told you it’s not just Eve being influenced. He’s doing it to you as well. Don’t you get it, Theo? He’d love to have you in his power, doing his killing for him.’ She waved her hand in front of my face. ‘He wants to cast a spell over you.’

She knocked the swimming portrait off the wall. When the fragile old wooden frame hit the ground it broke. I gasped, scandalised, but before I could stop her Janey went further, jabbing a sharp fingernail into the canvas and deliberately tearing at it, ripping away Cullayn’s face.

‘The paintings are worth a fortune!’ I roared, fighting her for the picture. ‘They’re—’

‘Shut up!’

‘But they’re not ours!’ I shouted. ‘They belong to the property. You can’t—’

‘Listen to you!’ Janey danced away, keeping the picture out of my reach. ‘Look how much you want
to protect it! You can’t even bear me touching it, can you?’

‘Just give me the picture!’

I was furious. All I wanted to do in that moment was mend the portrait and hang it back on the wall. I couldn’t stand the thought of anything else damaging it.

Janey refused to hand it over. ‘I’ve told you all about him and you
still
want to protect it,’ she said. ‘Strange, eh? But it’s not just you. It’s everyone. Look at the East Wing. Filthy, ugly place it is, everyone’s terrified of it, but it’s been preserved. The ghost children tell me that not one portrait has been moved inside it since Cullayn died. Don’t you think that’s odd, Theo?’

I breathed in heavily, forcing back my anger. Even now I wanted to make sure no more harm came to the swimming portrait. Janey finally handed it back to me, and I managed to patch it up, jamming the frame joints together again.

Janey leaned back, watching me closely as I repositioned the picture on the wall. It was only then, glancing at her out of the corner of my eye, that I noticed something unexpected. I saw that Janey wasn’t half as calm as she pretended to be. Both her hands had a white-knuckle grip on the wall. She was having to make a real effort to look away from the
canvas. Her gaze was drawn towards it just like mine was and, though she spat on it when she saw me looking, and smiled defiantly, I knew then that even Janey wasn’t immune to Cullayn’s influence.

The diary extract ended with that line. Elliott flipped the page over, desperate for it to continue.

Ben, wide awake again, was reading over his shoulder. ‘There are a few more,’ he said.

‘A few more what?’

‘Pages of the diary.’

Elliott raised his eyes.

‘I found them just after these,’ Ben said.

With a sense of dread, Elliott turned to face him. ‘Why didn’t you tell me about the new pages before? Why didn’t you just add them together?’

‘Dunno.’ Ben shrugged. ‘Forgot, I suppose.’

‘What do you mean, you forgot?’

‘I don’t know, all right?’ Ben said, matching Elliott’s growl. ‘Look, I can’t remember where I found them, OK? Do you want to read them or not?’

Elliott saw from Ben’s expression that he genuinely couldn’t recall where he had found the latest set of diary pages. He watched anxiously as Ben reached into his
jeans pocket for the four sheets of paper. ‘I put them here,’ he said. ‘To make sure I didn’t lose them,’ he added, as if that made perfect sense.

Are we being fed this diary in dribs and drabs? Elliott wondered. Not finding it accidentally, but being
given
it to read in pieces? If so, why?

‘That’s all I have,’ Ben said, handing the sheets over.

Elliott felt a shiver leap through him as he studied Ben’s calm, relaxed face. Then he opened the first crumpled page.

30th November. I’ve spent the week trying to persuade Mum and Dad to leave. I’ve started a nightly rant about it, and even though Mum likes it here, and seems almost as much in love with the portraits as Eve was, she’s weakening. The trouble is that Eve seems completely fine again. She’s behaving perfectly. No more following the portraits in a merry-go-round the house. But after what Janey told me, I’m more worried than before. I found a damaged portrait hidden away on the fourth floor earlier today as well. It’s a horrible study of a teenage boy in muddy boots with a slash through the middle of his head.