Raven_s Gate pof-1 Page 4

  “Good afternoon, Mrs Deverill,” he said.

  Mrs Deverill ignored him. She turned to Matt. “This is Noah.”

  Matt said nothing. Noah was examining him in a way that made him feel uneasy. “Welcome to Yorkshire,” Noah said. “I’m very pleased to meet you.” He held out a hand. The fingers were fat and stubby, the nails encrusted with mud. Matt didn’t take it.

  “Noah works for me on the farm,” Mrs Deverill explained. “He has very little conversation, so I wouldn’t bother talking to him.”

  The farmhand was still staring at him. His mouth was open and there was saliva on his chin. Matt turned away.

  “Get in the car,” Mrs Deverill said. “It’s time you saw your new home.”

  They drove for an hour; first on a dual carriageway, then on a B-road, then on a twisting country lane. The further they went, the bleaker the landscape became. Lesser Malling seemed to be hidden somewhere on the edge of the Yorkshire moors, but Matt didn’t see a single sign. He was feeling even sicker than before and he wondered if it was Noah’s driving or some sort of virus that he had picked up.

  They came to a crossroads – a meeting of five roads, all of them identical. There were trees on every side. Matt hadn’t noticed them enter the wood but now it surrounded them, totally enclosed them. The wood had obviously been planted recently. All the trees were the same – some sort of pine. They were the same height, the same colour and they had been set in dead straight lines with an identical amount of space between them. No matter which direction Matt looked, the view was exactly the same. He remembered what his social worker in London had told him. The LEAF Project wanted to keep him out of urban areas, away from temptation. They certainly couldn’t have chosen anywhere more remote than here.

  A single signpost stood at the intersection but the top had been broken off. A splintered pole was all that remained.

  “Lesser Malling is ten minutes up the road,” Mrs Deverill said, gesturing to the left. “I’ll show it to you when you’ve settled in a little more. But we live the other way.”

  Noah twisted the steering wheel and they turned left, following one of the other lanes for about fifty metres until they came to a gateway. Matt just had time to see a name, written in dull brown paint: Hive Hall. Then they were following a gravel drive between two barbed-wire fences that ran down to a courtyard and a complex of barns and buildings. The car stopped. They had arrived.

  Matt got out.

  It was a miserable place. The bad weather didn’t help but even in the sunshine there would have been little to recommend Hive Hall. The main farmhouse was made out of great stone slabs, with a slate roof that was buckling under the weight of a single, large chimney. The barns had been built with wooden planks that were so old and sodden, they were rotting where they stood, with dark green moss spreading across them like a disease. The farmyard itself was an irregular square of land that was as much water as earth and gravel. Chickens limped to and fro; they had scarcely moved to avoid the wheels of the Land Rover. Six pigs stood in the mud, shivering.

  “This is it,” Mrs Deverill announced as she got out of the car and stretched her legs. “It may not look much but it’s my home and it does well enough for me. Of course, there are no computer games here. There’s no television. But once you start working, you’ll find you’re too tired for these things. We go to bed early in the country. You’ll get used to our ways in time.”

  They went into the farmhouse. The front door opened into a long kitchen with a flagstone floor. There was an Aga stove at one end, with pots and pans hanging from the ceiling, and dozens of jars and bottles on wooden shelves. From here, Mrs Deverill led Matt into a living room with old and battered furniture, shelves full of books and, above a massive fireplace, what looked like a portrait of herself, though it must have been painted hundreds of years ago. It had the same cruel eyes, the same sunken cheeks. Only the hair was different, running loose as if caught in the wind.

  “My ancestor,” Mrs Deverill explained.

  Matt looked past the figure in the canvas. She was standing in front of a village. He could see a few desolate buildings behind her. He looked back at the face. And shivered. Nothing had moved, but he could have sworn she had been looking towards the frame, over to the left. Now her eyes were fixed on him. He swallowed hard. His imagination was playing tricks on him. Turning round he saw that Mrs Deverill was staring at him too. He was trapped between the two of them.

  Mrs Deverill smiled thinly. “She looks like me, doesn’t she? She was also a Deverill. There have been Deverills in this part of Yorkshire for three hundred years. Her name was Jayne, like mine. She burned to death. They say that when the wind blows in the right direction, you can still hear the screams. Let me show you upstairs…”

  Matt followed Mrs Deverill up a twisting staircase to the first floor and into a room at the end of the corridor. This was to be his bedroom… and it was the one room he most wanted to see. His headache had got worse. He wondered if he was going to be sick.

  The room had a low ceiling, exposed beams and a bare, wooden floor with a small rug in the centre. It looked over the back of the farm, across a field to the wood. The windows were small, set in walls which were at least a metre thick. There was a sagging bed, made up not with a duvet but with blankets and sheets. Opposite the bed was a washbasin and a chest of drawers with a vase of dried flowers. The pictures on the walls showed views of Lesser Malling, painted in watercolours.

  “They made me decorate for you,” Mrs Deverill remarked sourly. Of course the LEAF Project would have visited the farm. They would have insisted that the room was clean and comfortable. “I dried the flowers myself. Belladonna, oleander and mistletoe. Three of my favourites. All of them poisonous… but such lovely colours.”

  Matt put his case on the bed. At the same time he noticed something sitting between the pillows.

  “And this is Asmodeus,” Mrs Deverill said. “My cat.”

  It was a huge black cat with yellow eyes. Its stomach was bulging, as if it had recently eaten, and Matt noticed a patch of grey, where some of the fur had worn away. It was purring lazily. Matt reached out his hand to stroke it. The cat purred more loudly. Slowly, it turned its head and looked Matt in the eyes. Then it sank its teeth into his flesh.

  With a cry, Matt pulled his hand back. Bright red blood welled out of a jagged bite in his thumb. A drop fell on to the floor. Mrs Deverill took a step back. Matt saw that her eyes had widened and now, for the first time, she was smiling. All her attention was fixed on the blood on the floor.

  It was too much for him.

  The room turned. Matt swayed on his feet. He tried to say something but the words refused to come. The walls were spinning. He heard a door boom open. He looked through it and saw – or thought he saw – a circle of huge granite stones. Someone was holding a knife. He could see it hovering over his head, the pointed blade curving towards his eye. The floor seemed to shake and then, one after another, the wooden planks cracked open, splinters exploding all around. Brilliant light streamed through and in the light he thought he saw something like a giant, inhuman hand.

  A voice echoed in his ears.

  “One of the Five!” it whispered.

  The light engulfed him. He felt it sweeping through him, burning the inside of his head. He slammed the heels of his hands into his eyes, trying to block it out. Then he was falling backwards, but he was unconscious long before he hit the floor.

  A WARNING

  “What’s wrong with him?”

  “He has pneumonia.”

  “What?”

  “He may die.”

  “He can’t!”

  “Cure him, Mrs Deverill. It’s your responsibility. See that he lives!”

  Matt heard the voices but he wasn’t sure who they belonged to. He was lying in bed. He could feel a pillow against the back of his head. But as for the rest of it, he wasn’t sure if he was asleep or awake. He propped himself up and half-opened his eyes. Sweat trickled
down the side of his face. The single movement had taken all his strength.

  The door had just closed. Someone – the last person who had spoken – had left. It was a man, but Matt had been unable to see his face. Mrs Deverill was in the room with Matt, standing next to another woman, also white-haired but with some sort of bright red mark on the side of her face. Noah was lingering in the background, rubbing his hands.

  Then the room shimmered and suddenly the curtains were closed. There were flames leaping up, right next to the bed. Was the building on fire? No. They had set up some sort of metal tripod with a brazier filled with coals. The two women were speaking in a language that he didn’t understand, whispering to each other as they fed the flames with black- and green-coloured crystals. Matt saw the crystals melt and bubble, and at once the room was filled with yellow smoke. The smell of sulphur crept into his nostrils. Matt choked and his eyes watered. He tried to lick his lips but his mouth was dry.

  Noah came forward, holding a dish. The second woman – the one Matt didn’t know – was holding a snake. Where had it come from? It was an ugly brown, half a metre long, writhing in front of her. A viper? She had produced a scalpel, the sort of thing a surgeon might use. Matt saw her hold the snake by the head and then slit it open. Dark red liquid oozed out, dripping down into a metal cup. The snake became rigid and still.

  Mrs Deverill pulled back the bedcovers. Matt was only wearing underpants and he shrank back as she leant over him. She dipped a finger in the snake’s blood, then drew a line down his chest and on to his stomach. The liquid was warm and sticky against his skin. He tried to move, but his body would no longer obey him. He could only watch as Mrs Deverill reached up and made some sort of mark on his forehead.

  “Open your mouth,” she commanded.

  “No…” Matt whispered the single word. He tried to stop himself. But suddenly his mouth was open and Mrs Deverill was feeding him from the cup. He knew that he was drinking blood. It tasted bitter, more horrible than anything in the world. He was going to be sick. He wanted to get it out of his system but instead it slithered into his stomach like the ghost of the snake it had come from. And at the same time he was sucked backwards, into the mattress, into the floor, buried alive until…

  He opened his eyes.

  Mrs Deverill was in the room, reading a book. There was nobody with her. The window was open, allowing the breeze to come in. Matt swallowed. He was feeling light-headed but otherwise fine.

  “So you’ve woken up at last,” Mrs Deverill muttered, closing the book.

  “What happened?” Matt asked.

  “You’ve been ill. Nothing very serious. Pneumonia. A touch of pleurisy. But it’s all behind you now.”

  “You gave me something to drink…” Matt tried to remember, even though he didn’t want to. The very thought of what had happened repulsed him. “There was a snake,” he said.

  “A snake? What are you talking about? You’ve been having bad dreams, Matthew. I would imagine it comes from watching too much television.”

  “I’m hungry,” Matt said.

  “I expect you are. You haven’t eaten for three days.”

  “Three days!”

  “That’s how long you were unconscious.” She got up and shuffled over to the door. “I’ll bring you up some tea,” she said. “You can rest tomorrow but after that I want you up on your feet. The fresh air will do you good. And anyway, it’s time you began work.”

  She took one last look at him, nodded to herself and closed the door.

  Two days later Matt stood in the pigsty with stinking mud and filth reaching almost up to his knees. Mrs Deverill had spoken of fresh air but the stench here was so bad, he could barely breathe. Noah had provided him with boots and gloves but he had no other protective clothes. His jeans and shirt were soon dripping with black slime. The disinfectant he had been given burned his throat and made his eyes water.

  He reached down with the spade and scooped up another bucketful of muck. It would be lunch soon and he was looking forward to it. Mrs Deverill was, despite everything, a good cook. When Matt had been living with Gwenda Davis, all his meals had come out of the deep freeze straight into the microwave. He preferred the food here: home-baked bread, rich stews and fruit pies with thick pastry crusts.

  He had changed. He knew that something had happened to him during his illness, even if he had no idea what it was. It was as if a switch had been thrown inside him. He couldn’t explain it but he felt stronger and more confident than ever before.

  And that was good because he had already decided. He was going to run away. He still found it incredible that the LEAF Project could have sent him to this godforsaken place and made him the slave of a grim, unsmiling woman. Matt disliked Mrs Deverill, but it was Noah, the farmhand, who really made his skin crawl. Noah was usually out in the fields, bouncing along in an ancient tractor that belched black smoke. But when he was close, he couldn’t keep his eyes off Matt. He was always leering at him, as if he knew something that Matt didn’t. Matt wondered if he was brain-damaged. He didn’t seem to be quite human.

  Matt didn’t care what happened to him but he knew he couldn’t stay at Hive Hall. Not for a year. Not even for another week. He had no money but he was sure he would be able to find some if he looked hard enough. Then he would either hitch-hike or take a train to London. He would lose himself in the capital, and although he’d heard plenty of horror stories, he was sure that somehow he would be able to survive. In just two years he would be sixteen and independent. Never again would any adult tell him what he had to do.

  Mrs Deverill appeared at the door of the farmhouse and called out to him. Matt wasn’t wearing his watch but guessed it must be one o’clock. She was always punctual. He threw down the spade and climbed out of the sty. In the distance, Noah appeared, carrying two buckets of animal feed. He never ate in the farmhouse. He had a room on the upper floor of the barn and that was where he cooked, slept and presumably washed – although not often, as he smelled worse than the pigs.

  Matt took off his boots outside the front door, then went into the kitchen and washed his hands in the sink. Mrs Deverill was already serving vegetable soup. There was bread, butter and cheese on the table. Asmodeus was sitting on the sideboard and Matt shivered. He disliked the cat even more than he disliked Noah – and it wasn’t just because of the jagged scar on his hand. Like Noah, the cat was always watching him. It had a way of appearing out of nowhere. Matt would turn his head and there it would be… in the branch of a tree, on a windowsill or a chair, always with its ugly, yellow eyes fixed on him. Normally he would ignore it, but if he came close, the cat would arch its back and hiss.

  “Out of the kitchen, please, Asmodeus,” Mrs Deverill said. The cat understood her perfectly. It leapt out of a window and was gone.

  Matt sat down and began to eat.

  “There’s something I want you to do for me this afternoon, Matthew,” Mrs Deverill said.

  “I’m cleaning the pigs.”

  “I know what you’re doing. One day you’ll learn that being rude to people who are older and wiser than you won’t do you any good. In fact, I have a task for you which you might enjoy. I’d like you to collect something for me from the chemist in Lesser Malling.”

  “What do you want me to pick up?”

  “It’s a package, addressed to me. You can go there after lunch.” She held a spoonful of soup to her lips. Steam rose up in front of her unsmiling face. “There’s an old bicycle in the barn you can use. It belonged to my husband.”

  “You were married?” That was news to Matt. He couldn’t imagine anyone sharing their life with this woman.

  “For a short time.”

  “What happened to your husband?”

  “Young people shouldn’t ask questions. It’s not good for them. However…” She sighed and lowered the spoon. “Henry disappeared. That was his name. Henry Lutterworth. We’d only been married a few months when he went for a walk in the wood and never came back. I
t’s possible that he simply got lost and starved to death. Let that be a lesson to you, Matthew. The woods are very thick around here, and you can easily get swallowed up. It’s quite likely that he stumbled into a bog. That’s my guess. It would have been a very unpleasant way to die. He’d have tried to swim, but of course the more he struggled, the faster he’d have gone down, and the water and the mud would have risen up over his nostrils, and that would have been the end of him.”

  Matt wondered if she was telling him the truth. Or was she just trying to frighten him?

  “If his name was Lutterworth, how come you call yourself Deverill?” he asked.

  “I prefer my own name. The name of my ancestors. There have always been Deverills in Lesser Malling. Married or unmarried, we keep our own name.” She sniffed. “Henry left me Hive Hall in his will,” she explained. “We used to have bees but they all went away. They often do that, when their owner dies. I inherited all his money. But the point of all this is, my dear, that if I were you, I’d steer well clear of the wood.”

  “I’ll do that,” Matt said.

  “Remember now. The chemist. Just tell them it’s for me.”

  After lunch, Matt crossed the farmyard and went into the barn. He found the bicycle parked behind an old plough. It obviously hadn’t been used for years. But he pulled it out, oiled the chain, pumped up the tyres, and a few minutes later he was able to pedal out of the farm. It felt good, passing through the rusting gates. He was still doing chores for Mrs Deverill. But anything was better than the pigs.

  As he went, a car came the other way and for a moment it seemed they were going to collide. The car was a black Jaguar with tinted windows. Everything happened so quickly that Matt didn’t even see who was driving. He jerked the handlebars and the bike veered up a bank of nettles before curving back on to the lane. He came to a halt and twisted round. The Jaguar had driven into the farm. He saw the red glow of its brake lights but then it disappeared behind the farmhouse. He was tempted to go back. It was the only modern car he had seen since he had come to Hive Hall and he wondered if it had come on account of him. Could it be someone from London, from the social services? He hesitated, then continued on his way. This was the first time he had left the farm – his first taste of freedom. He wasn’t going back yet.