PLUMES OF CORDITE rose from Roxburgh’s shotgun. Daniels lurked behind him, his face pasty and damp, one ear massive and purple. The little terrier growled deep in her chest, teeth bared.
Daniels? thought Sep.
He looked at the others, each of them frozen in terror, eyes fixed on the shotgun. He could see what they were all thinking, faced with this bleeding, tattooed wild man: that he’d tried to kill Maguire and now he was here, pointing a gun at their heads.
But Roxburgh hadn’t shot them. He’d shot the doll.
And, more than that, Sep realized—he hadn’t seemed surprised to see it.
“So it’s you’s been doin’ this?” said the old gamekeeper. The skin on his face was red and thick, his eyes deep behind a broken orange-peel nose. He was holding another terrier close to his chest. Its neck was limp, and Sep saw its fur was soaked with blood.
He stared at the little doll. Blown apart, it looked like any other broken toy, the terrible light gone from its eyes.
“Speak!” said Roxburgh, stabbing the gun at them.
“That’s not ours,” blurted Lamb, her voice shaking.
Hadley sobbed, then took a quick burst of her inhaler.
“I know that,” said Roxburgh, “but—”
“All right, Septic?” said Daniels.
“You shut it,” said Roxburgh. “Now, for the last time, is it you’s what’s been at the clearin’?”
“Pardon, sir?” said Sep, the noise of the shotgun still ringing in his good ear.
Roxburgh angled his head, narrowing his eyes. “You that deaf boy?”
“Yes, sir,” said Sep.
“Oh, I remember you lot,” said Roxburgh, spitting at his feet. “You was the ones found it in ’82—always on your bikes, an’ settin’ things on fire. Wasn’t there a stupid kid with big teeth?”
“You tried to kill Mrs. Maguire!” said Arkle, his eyes wide. “You’re a killer! You’re a killer!”
“There you are,” said Roxburgh, pointing the gun at Arkle.
“Holy shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii—” said Arkle.
“I asked if it’s you been skulkin’ these past nights, but I reckon I’ve got my answer.”
“That wasn’t—we’ve not been here before today, sir,” said Sep.
The terrier’s growl rose in its throat, and Roxburgh shook his head. “One of you has.”
“I knew it,” said Lamb, her voice shaking as her eyes flicked accusingly at the others. “I knew it!”
“Sir, what was that?” Sep pointed at the shards of wet plastic.
“A doll. Found it climbin’ out the stone this mornin’, dangerous little bastard. Took a chunk out my leg”—he gestured to the bloodstained patch of torn fabric on his trousers—“an’ it’s your meddlin’ what’s brought it out.”
The five looked at each other.
“Don’t play dumb wi’ me! You broke the rules!” Roxburgh snapped. “You said the words, an’ you’ve gone back on ’em.”
“Wait, you know about the rules?” said Lamb, lowering her hands. “What the hell?”
“What rules?” said Daniels.
“Shut it,” said Roxburgh again. “You think you were the first ones to find it? Never come to the box alone. Never open it after dark. Never take back your sacrifice.”
“They’re the same as ours,” said Lamb. “They’re the same rules we made.”
“Of course they are,” said Roxburgh slowly.
“You tried to kill Mrs. Maguire,” Arkle burst out, panic driving his mouth. “You’ve got prison tattoos and everything!”
Roxburgh spat again, sending a black blob into one of his giant bootprints. “That ain’t so, son—it was me saved ’er. This bloody doll was ’er sacrifice. Meant to choke ’er to death, but I got there in time.”
Sep’s head spun. “Maguire made a sacrifice?” he said. “Mrs. Maguire?”
“Wasn’t her name then,” said Roxburgh, shifting the terrier’s dead weight onto his other arm. “She was Aileen Gordon, brightest girl in the school. It was her idea to make the offerin’. So we did. Five of us,” he added, looking around at them each in turn.
“And it tried to choke her?” said Sep, remembering Barnaby’s shadow on his window. “The doll tried to kill her?”
Roxburgh nodded. “Sadie,” he said, tasting the name. “She came back when you messed it all up again—an’ my puppet’s out there too, somewhere. We were the only ones left, me an’ Aileen, after Shelley moved away.”
Sep’s memory flickered. “Did she move to New York?”
Now Roxburgh looked surprised. “How’d you know a thing like that?” he said quietly.
“She died. Mr. Tench told me Mrs. Maguire’s friend in New York died suddenly. Yesterday.”
“That’s right,” murmured Roxburgh, almost to himself. He looked at them and smiled without humor, his teeth stained like an old teapot. “Means I’m next then, doesn’t it?”
“So it does go in order?” said Hadley.
Daniels looked from her to the gamekeeper, his brow furrowed in confusion.
“Aren’t you clever?” said the old man, packing more tobacco into his mouth. “Not clever enough, though—you don’t know what you’re dealin’ with. The box gives you the rules an’ takes everythin’ you give it—much more than your sacrifice, though you don’t know it at the time. All the secret things. An’ so long as you keep your promises, you’ll be safe . . . but it can’t stand the rules bein’ broken. It gets angry. Look, you all know me, an’ how I keep these woods. Well, I’ve been keepin’ an eye on that box. I buried it good and deep, an’ nobody’d found it until that damn storm spat it out an’ you little bastards started messin’ around. But this”—he kicked the doll’s broken skull—“this never happened back in my time.”
“What did happen?” said Hadley, her voice no more than a breath.
“Well . . . we did it wrong—broke one of the rules,” said Roxburgh, his eyes far-off as he settled into the confession. “They came back, tried to scare us, but they never tried to kill us. Then we did it a second time, properly.” He refocused, glared around at them all. “I don’t know what you’ve done, but this is worse. Even the forest knows it. Nothin’s growin’ except the mushrooms.”
“We don’t know what we’ve done. We don’t even know what rule we’ve broken. But we’ve tried to fix it,” said Sep. “Just now, we tried to put the rules right—reverse whatever went wrong. We’re here together, in daylight, and we mean to—”
“But you’ve not done it properly!” Roxburgh snapped, his voice like a thunderclap in the silent forest. “Well,” he said, noting how they stood apart—seeing the distance between them. “I’d say you’re not capable of anythin’ else, lookin’ at you. You can’t bring that kind of resentment here an’ expect it to work for you. I can’t do it for you. Even if I could, I’m old an’ tired an’ it’s already killed one of my damn dogs.”
“The doll killed your dog?” said Hadley.
Sep saw how pale she was, how unsteady on her feet.
“Jus’ get out of here an’ don’t come back,” said Roxburgh. “An’ take this lump with you.”
Daniels looked at him, snapping out of his trance. “I’m not going with them,” he said. “They’re assholes.”
“Watch your goddamn language,” growled Roxburgh, snapping open his gun. “An’ you’ll do as you’re told. I was plannin’ on holin’ up when I found you skulkin’ around.”
“I’d nearly caught it,” said Daniels.
“Caught what?” said Sep.
“The pellet-eyed crow.”
Sep looked at Daniels properly for the first time. His eyes were red and sore, and his Mohawk had flopped over his sunburnt scalp.
Daniels snapped his teeth, and grinned.
“I told you,” said Roxburgh, “they’s already dead—you can’t hunt ’em any more’n you can scoop up the moon.”
“The crows are dead?” said Sep.
“You’ve seen ’em?”
“Yes. They’ve been outside our houses—and they were at the box just now. Three of them.”
Roxburgh nodded, and took his time answering. “They’s not usual crows,” he said eventually.
“So what are they?” shouted Arkle. “Aren’t you going to give us, like, guidance?”
The gamekeeper squinted at him, shook his head. “Those really are some teeth, son.”
“Sir,” said Sep, taking a half pace forward, “how do we stop the sacrifice box from hurting us?”
Roxburgh pocketed his leather tobacco pouch, the tattooed swallow wings beating as his hands moved. He slotted in two new shells, holding Sep’s eye.
“I told you: you’ve come to it all wrong,” he said, closing the gun. “Too bitter, too resentful. I don’t know if you can do anythin’ now.”
“But . . . you did,” said Lamb, hand on her face. “You did something! You managed to stop it! So why can’t we?”
“I told you—what you’ve done must be worse than what we did. Now get out of here, an’ don’t come back. Stay safe. Hide.”
“You’re meant to be wise—and helpful,” said Arkle, almost to himself.
Roxburgh lifted the gun back onto his shoulder. “Are you scared, little children?”
“Yes,” said Sep. “We are.”
He could feel the others holding their breath.
Roxburgh shook his head, and smiled. “No, you’re not. You don’t know fear—not real fear. But you might, before this is over.”
“I’m not scared,” said Daniels.
Roxburgh shot him a look. “You’d already pissed your trousers when I found you.”
“That’s amazing,” said Arkle quickly.
Daniels’s face darkened. “I fell—in the river.”
“Ain’t no rivers of piss around here, son.” Roxburgh snorted. “Get goin’ now. Fast as you can.”
“But—” said Lamb.
“Go! These is my woods—you’ve already done ’em enough harm!”
They edged past him, Daniels storming ahead, the others helping each other through the streams and over the rocks.
“What do we do?” Sep called back. “Please?”
“Forgive each other,” said Roxburgh, without turning around.
“What?”
“You heard me. I can see it when I look at you—all that resentment’s like storm clouds around your heads. Forgive each other, then you’ll have a chance.”
“All right,” said Sep uncertainly. “Thank you.”
Roxburgh listened as their footsteps faded into the trees, waited for the pickup to rumble into life and speed off. Then he shifted the dog’s dead weight onto his shoulder, stamped the last shards of Sadie’s body into the dirt, and headed home.