MOURN HOME WAS sleeping – except for Tim. He was sitting cross-legged on the floor of the study surrounded by his family’s most precious possessions. The lamp on his father’s desk spotlit him in the middle of the antique papers and bound manuscripts he’d taken from the glass cabinet. It was seventeen minutes past twelve – seventeen minutes into a new day, into another day closer to his sixteenth birthday, closer to his Carving. He didn’t like the speed with which the days were passing. Less than a week now.
He’d been here since early evening. That crabby old bastard Jack Spicer had been as good as his word and told everyone who would listen what an ill-mannered and disrespectful brat Tim was. Fortunately the only person listening had been Anne because Bill had been at a meeting of townspeople opposed to Vic Stones’s hotel all evening. Anne had given him the expected dressing down in front of Mr Spicer – the dressing down the cantankerous old git expected him to receive, that is. But when Mr Spicer had left them alone she’d told Tim that if he wanted to avoid upsetting his father any more, he should just do as he’d been asked.
He’d taken her advice. At first it felt like he’d been banished to the study just to keep him out of everybody’s hair, but he didn’t mind too much – he’d always been someone who was happy enough to have time alone to think. He’d started reading only reluctantly to begin with, then had decided that he might as well try and find some of that elusive proof. So far, however, he’d been disappointed.
Old William’s diary had pretty much defeated him, with its broken, jittery handwriting and archaic language. So he’d taken Richard’s copy of the text. Richard had been Mourner from 1835 to 1866, and Tim reasoned that since he’d read and enjoyed Frankenstein, which was written round about the same time, he should be okay with it. And it was easier to follow, but twice the length of the original and deadly dull. Still, he waded through most of it, only to feel cheated when it didn’t help his cause in the least.
Donald – who’d taken over as Mourner in 1900 when his older brother, Henry, died of TB without having any sons of his own – hadn’t made a copy of the diary. Apparently he’d aspired to being the next Conan Doyle and had instead turned his account into an adventure yarn. Bill had tried to warn Tim off reading it, repeating again how important Old William’s original words were. He said the reason successive Mourners had often made copies of the original diary was to gain greater knowledge and understanding of those words. But Donald had been the last Mourner to claim he’d actually seen the Mourn.
According to his version of events the creature had risen from the dark depths of the lake ‘with such violence and ferociousness’ that it caused a terrifying earthquake which ‘set every house and home in Moutonby trembling’. He wrote that he saw the beast ‘rise from the maelstrom of black water with a roar like thunder’. Luckily Donald was safely on dry land at that precise moment, but he called for an immediate Feed which no Fearful declined to attend.
The history books did mention a ‘minor earth tremor’ in the area and the rebuilding of the Dows Bridges in 1908. Donald’s sighting was only revealed in his diary and was as hotly disputed as Old William’s. Even Bill admitted to being sceptical, but refused to believe any Mourner would need to lie, simply stating that Donald’s diary was indeed sensational. Tim’s view, however, was that it all read like a particularly bad Hound of the Baskervilles even with the earthquake.
Bill’s notes on the original diary were of course the easiest to follow. But somehow they didn’t help. The long-ago events they described, the supernatural occurrences and manifestations of the Mourn, sounded odd in his flat, modern tone of voice. Somehow Old William’s archaic diatribe seemed to be the way it should be told.
But Tim’s eyes were weary; he had pins and needles from sitting on the floor for so long. And he needed to clear his head. He was just too tired to think. But first he couldn’t resist checking one more time; he had to read it again just in case.
He found the page in Old William’s diary. He ran his finger under the lines.
. . . and the first-born of Mourn Home, my son William, will follow me at that time he turns sixteen. This will be precedent for all Mourners and their sons, for there must always be a Mourner for Moutonby’s lost children . . .
It was one simple, short paragraph. But it was everything to his father and to him, although for each in a different way.
He gathered the manuscripts, putting them back in the glass cabinet carefully, exactly as he’d found them, and locking it all up with the key his father had left for him. He switched off the desk lamp, pitching the room into darkness. The study window looked onto his mother’s flowerbeds and down to the lake. Habit made him turn his head and glance out that way as he headed for the door – he was as bad as Jack Spicer, he reckoned. He could see the shadowy lump of the Mourn Stone and the water behind it. What he wasn’t expecting was to see a pale face appear on the other side of the glass.
He leaped back with the shock of it. Then wasn’t sure what froze him to the spot: surprise or fear? Had he been seen? Did whoever it was know he was here? He could hear his heart and it sounded way too loud.
But as the face peered in, the shock slowly released its grip and he decided not, because he was several steps away from the window and the room was in total darkness. Then he recognized the face. Gully.
The student had his nose pressed up against the glass, squinting inside. Tim was more than just a little tempted to leap forward and thump on the window as hard as he could, and see who jumped then. Gully moved back of his own accord, however, and ran his hands around the frame. He pushed and prodded it, as if testing how secure it was.
Tim didn’t have a clue what he was doing out there, but reckoned that wherever there was Gully there’d also be Scott. Cautiously he moved closer to the window. Gully was pacing backwards, craning his neck to see the upper floors. And there was Scott, off to one side, hunched up in his thin denim jacket and swigging from a can of lager. Tim guessed they’d been drinking late at WetFun’s bar again, but had lost or forgotten their key and locked themselves out.
Good. Let them freeze.
Small revenge for what they’d done to Jenny perhaps, but not bad for starters. The problem was that it wouldn’t take them long to get cold enough to ring the bell and wake the whole house. So maybe he should let them in. He moved closer still to the window and noticed a third person with them. He saw the burning tip of a cigarette first, then the tall, wiry silhouette standing behind Scott, over near the garage.
‘Shit.’
Roddy Morgan.
It took only a moment to decide he wasn’t going to wake anyone. Roddy was only here to provoke trouble, to cause as much grief as possible. But maybe by confronting him Tim could prove something.
Not exactly sure what that something was, he crept from the study to the kitchen. He didn’t turn any lights on. From the kitchen window all three of them were in full view. Gully and Scott had joined Roddy by the garage. Silently Tim pulled on his coat and trainers. He hovered with his hand on the back door’s handle for a few seconds. He could recognize Scott’s voice, but wasn’t quite able to make out what he was saying.
Unsure whether he was more angry or more anxious he stepped out into the chilly night air. The gravel of the driveway crunched beneath his shoes and Roddy was the first to spot him.
‘Hey! It’s Monster Boy!’ He sniffed the air. ‘Is it just me, or can anyone else smell shepherd’s pie?’
Tim ignored him, refusing to rise to the bait, because Scott was holding Gully’s legs, steadying him as he climbed into the garage through its open window. But as soon as he realized Tim was there he let his friend go. And Gully tipped over the sill, plunging forward; there was the rattle and chink as his pockets emptied themselves of loose change, then his legs instantly disappeared as though the garage had sucked him inside. He gave a muffled grunt as he hit the floor.
‘What’s going on?’ Tim’s voice was a harsh whisper, conscious of the sleeping house. ‘What do you think you’re doing?’
Scott was drunk. ‘Lost our key.’ He wasn’t particularly steady on his feet and it looked like his head was too heavy for his neck.
Tim checked the window. ‘You didn’t smash anything, did you?’
‘It was already open,’ Scott said. ‘We didn’t have to smash it.’
Tim double-checked it anyway, then stuck his head inside. Gully was picking himself up off the concrete floor, feeling around for his scattered money. He couldn’t see it in the dark.
‘Get out, Gully.’
‘We thought we’d sleep in here,’ he said. It was obvious he was just as drunk. ‘We didn’t want to wake you up.’
‘Why not? Worried my sister has grassed you up?’
He turned away. ‘Lost my money.’ He cast around in the dark again.
‘Just get out, will you? My dad’ll go mad when I tell him. I’m not joking.’ He glanced at Mourn Home; the windows were still dark.
‘Why’ve you got to tell him?’ Scott asked. ‘Just let us in quietly and nobody’ll know anything.’ He’d taken a couple of steps closer to Tim and although he was slurring slightly there was a sharper edge to his words. ‘No one needs to know. Right?’
Tim had no real intention of telling anybody anything, but . . . ‘Why should I do you any favours after what you did to my sister?’
‘That was just us messing about.’
‘She could have drowned.’
‘She gave as good as she got. She kicked Gully in the balls.’ He leaned in the garage window. ‘Hey. She kicked you in the balls, didn’t she?’ He thought it was funny. ‘We were just having a laugh,’ Scott told him.
‘Yeah, well, Jenny didn’t find it very funny.’
‘Did you really think she was going to get eaten?’ Gully called from inside the garage. ‘That’s wild if you did.’
‘Of course he did,’ Scott said. ‘That’s why he didn’t jump in after her. He may be wild, but he’s not stupid.’
Tim stayed silent while they laughed.
‘Are you going to let us in, then?’ Scott eventually asked.
Roddy Morgan stepped up to them. ‘Stop being a nob-head and let them in, Monster Boy.’ He was standing behind Scott, but close up to his shoulder. He was with the big boys now and wanted Tim to know it.
‘What’s it got to do with you?’ Tim said, hating the way he sounded like a kid. ‘What’re you doing here anyway?’
‘We invited him,’ Scott said. ‘Told him he could come back to our room for a couple of beers. He wangled us some free drinks out of his boss and we wanted to pay him back.’ Everything he said was a statement of intent, no question attached. Kind of, This is what we’re doing whether you like it or not.
‘Vic always gives me a few freebies at the end of the night,’ Roddy said. ‘I’m his right-hand man.’
‘Yeah, I bet you are.’
Roddy didn’t get it at first, not until Tim gave the international gesture for wanking. Then he went a deep, angry red and moved out from behind Scott. He was heated enough not to need the older lad now.
Scott laughed, but Roddy met Tim’s eyes with real malice. He stepped up to the garage window and leaned inside, as if looking for something. ‘Hey, Gully. Have a look in that freezer. You won’t believe what they keep in their freezers at this place.’
Tim’s heart went cold. Roddy smirked at him; it was well known locally what was kept in their freezer. Tim pushed him away from the window. ‘Get out of there, Gully. It’s for the—’ But too late.
‘Bloody hell!’ Gully was understandably amazed. ‘Scott! Have you seen this? Look at all this stuff!’ He dragged a frosty, lumpy plastic bag from inside and ripped it open.
Scott recoiled. ‘Is that a cat?’
Gully held up the remains of the roadkill. ‘Don’t you know a fox when you see one?’ Its back legs were crushed, twisted, its head the wrong shape, but it was definitely a fox. ‘Gross!’ He threw it at them – they all three ducked as one. It flew over their heads to land behind them in Anne’s flowerbeds.
Tim immediately ran to grab it. Gingerly he picked it up by its rigid tail. The covering of cold, crispy frost on the fur felt like woolly gloves after a snowball fight. ‘Just get out, Gully. I’ll let you into the house, okay?’
Roddy thought it was hilarious. ‘I always knew your family were freaks, Monster Boy. But this is sick.’
‘What else is in there?’ Scott was curious in an appalled kind of way.
‘It’s just feed,’ Tim said, wanting to make it sound normal, thinking deep down he never could even in a million years.
‘You eat dead foxes?’ Gully called through the window. ‘Wow! McDonald’s are missing a trick there all right.’
‘It’s what they give their guests for breakfast.’ Roddy was in stitches.
Tim turned on him. ‘Yeah. Funny. It’s for the Mourn, obviously.’
An icy hedgehog Frisbee flew out to land in the grass at his feet. Its spilled but frozen guts sparkled like jewels in the moonlight.
‘Hey, watch where you’re chucking that stuff!’ Scott had to dodge a couple of stone-solid starlings with snapped wings and broken legs. ‘Hey!’
‘Come on, Gully,’ Tim said. His anger had turned over to reveal the age-old embarrassment underneath. ‘Leave it alone, will you? All this is needed for next week.’ He was trying to pick up everything Gully was chucking out into the garden. ‘Just pack it in.’ He was watching for lights again, but none came on. Maybe he was lucky the old walls were so thick – maybe not. He knew all he had to do was fetch his dad, but somehow this had got well out of control and he felt he was to blame. He could have just let them into the house and none of this would have happened.
Gully was back at the window, another flat hedgehog in his hand. ‘Would you like fries with that?’
Everybody laughed, except Tim.
Scott swallowed the last of his lager, crumpled the can and tossed it aside. He surprised Tim by grabbing the dead fox out of his hand before he could stop him. ‘I’m going fishing,’ he said. He swayed slightly on his unsteady feet then set off towards the feeding pier.
Gully was confused. ‘Fishing?’
Scott held the frozen fox up above his head. ‘Yeah, fishing. For monsters.’
Gully laughed loudly and virtually leaped out through the garage window. He snatched up a dead bird or two to go with his hedgehog. ‘Wait up! I want to see this!’
Tim hadn’t believed the night could get any worse.
‘Why didn’t I ever think of that?’ Roddy wanted to know. He picked up a starling of his own.
Too late now, Tim thought, but maybe he really should have woken his dad. He turned to look at the house. Maybe—
‘You don’t want to do that.’ It was as if Roddy had read his mind. And then Gully was next to him too. ‘Come on,’ Roddy said. ‘We’re having a laugh, don’t be your usual boring self and spoil it.’
If Roddy had been alone Tim would have stood up to him. But with Gully there as well all he could do was let them walk him out onto the feeding pier above the lake.
Their boots and trainers sounded loud on the planks, but Tim knew they were too far away from the house to be heard. The wind had died down during the day and now, although it was cold, there was not even a whisper of a breeze. The water beneath the pier could have been black ice. They went all the way out, right to the very end. The little rowing boat tied up to the side was motionless, looking like it had frozen into the blackness.
Gully was shivering. Scott got out a cigarette and Gully stole it from between his lips.
‘Bet the water’s freezing,’ Scott said, lighting another. ‘It’s cold enough during the day.’
‘Bloody perishing,’ Gully agreed.
Tim was worried. With a heavy, sinking dread he knew that one of them would pretty soon come up with the idea of chucking him in. They’d done it to Jenny; they’d do it to him just as quick.
Again it was as if Roddy knew what he was thinking. ‘Wouldn’t want to fall in. You’d be an icicle in seconds. You’d never even reach the bottom.’
Tim shivered involuntarily.
‘I didn’t think it had a bottom. Or it’s a hundred miles deep or something.’ Gully said. ‘Has anybody ever checked?’ He stamped on the wooden planks. ‘How come this doesn’t sink then, if it is?’
Roddy tutted. ‘Doesn’t anyone know their local history except for me and Monster Boy?’
‘We’re not local,’ Gully said.
Scott put his cigarette to the dead fox’s fur and listened to it hiss. ‘About which we’re extremely pleased.’
Roddy waved his dead birds at Tim. ‘I’ll let you explain it if you want.’
But Tim only glared at him.
Roddy shrugged. ‘It’s only really deep once you get past here,’ he said. ‘They built this as far out as they could, before the bottom sort of falls away and suddenly goes down really steeply.’ He stamped his foot like Gully had. ‘But this is on solid rock.’
‘You know a lot about something you reckon you hate,’ Tim said.
‘Why do you think I hate it so much?’ There was real venom in Roddy’s words. ‘Don’t you get it? I’ve had it rammed down my throat since the day I was born and it’s all bollocks! It’s impossible not to know about this stuff if you live around here.’ Then to Gully again: ‘No one really knows how deep it is the middle. Like everything else round here, you just have to believe what his family tells you to. And why should we give a shit what a family full of freaks says? They’ve never done anything except sponge off everyone else and make our town look stupid because people think we believe in monsters.’
Gully wasn’t really interested in Roddy’s ranting. He was staring at the water. ‘It can’t be a hundred miles deep. That’d be impossible.’
‘I don’t think anybody really believes it’s that deep,’ Tim said, as if to a child. ‘It’s just one of those really old names that stuck. It was called the Hundredwaters long before 1699.’
‘You’re admitting it’s a lie!’ Roddy cried.
Tim didn’t want to argue about it. ‘If you like.’
‘You see, it’s all bullshit! Everything his freaky family says, they expect you to believe. And we get it shoved down our throats all the time as little kids. It’s like the three men who died building this feeding pier. It was a big storm and only one body was found afterwards. And the freaks round here expect you to believe that the big, bad monster ate the other two.’
‘Believe what you want for all I care,’ Tim said.
‘I will, I will. Because I believe the Mourner killed them.’
‘What?’ Tim had to laugh.
Roddy was serious. ‘It was your great-granddad, wasn’t it?’
‘Have you trapped your head in one of those outboard motors you were supposed to be mending or something?’
‘If they were builders they probably just went down the pub and couldn’t be arsed to come back,’ Scott said. ‘My old man’s a builder. I should know.’
Gully was poking his dead starling suspiciously. One of its brittle legs broke and pinged off into the darkness. ‘Is that who your boss was talking about at the bar?’ he asked Roddy. ‘He said it was the teacher that killed them or something?’ He leaned over the edge and dropped the little speckled corpse over the side of the pier with a muted splash. The ripples spread quickly across the smooth blackness of water.
‘No, that was the teacher who started it all: Old Willy the pervert. He killed the kids and made the whole legend up so no one would find out he’d been molesting them.’ He eyed Tim carefully, and Tim met his stare without saying a word. Because he’d heard this story before – and from people far more intelligent than Roddy Morgan. He was just hoping the three of them would get bored and cold and want to go inside.
‘Interesting theory,’ Scott said. ‘So you really don’t believe in this monster?’
‘I’ll tell what I believe,’ Roddy said. ‘The whole family’s a bunch of perverts and murderers, that’s what.’
Scott turned to Tim. ‘And what about you?’
Tim kept his face set, blank. ‘Who knows what to believe?’ he said.
Scott laughed. ‘Excellent point – well made.’
Tim turned away. He was wondering if he could shove Roddy in. One hard push. Then run.
‘Come on, let’s see if we can catch us a legend.’ Scott had the fox by its tail. ‘Stiff as a broom,’ he said.
‘Brush,’ Gully corrected him.
The three of them laughed. They were all just good mates together, united by Roddy’s antagonism towards Tim. And Tim surprised himself by thinking how good it would be if the Mourn was real. Apart from wanting it to appear right here, right now, and bite a chunk out of Roddy (which would obviously be bloody marvellous for lots of reasons), he realized how great it would be to prove him wrong. He remembered what Jenny had said about wanting to be different to people like Roddy and Gully and Scott, and now he understood what she’d meant. He wanted people like them to be wrong. He wanted his father to be right. Because wouldn’t that be the greatest revenge of all?
Gully was kneeling down dangling his crushed hedgehog over the edge. ‘Come on then, you big bastard!’ he shouted out at the lake. ‘Come and eat me if you dare!’ He hurled the hedgehog.
Tim watched him kneeling there. If he couldn’t shove Roddy in, maybe Gully instead. Give the Mourn a helping hand. Do it for Jenny. It would be so easy to kick him over the side – he wasn’t even looking.
It was now or never. He took a step forward. But Roddy saw him and grabbed his arm, twisting it up behind him, making him cry out. He put his face right up close to Tim’s.
‘You’re too late,’ a voice called from further down the pier.
Roddy instantly let go of him. Scott dropped the fox at his feet.
A tall man was striding towards them. ‘It’s already been fed. Won’t be hungry till next Saturday at least.’ He was wearing a tatty, black leather jacket, had his hands stuffed in the pockets. He was in his early forties, with a pale, oval face and a widow’s peak of short black hair. He was grinning from ear to ear.
Tim couldn’t help but let his relief show. He was always pleased to see his Uncle Doug, but this . . . This was perfect timing.
‘How’re you doing, Timmo?’ He threw an arm around his nephew’s shoulders, pulling him a couple of steps away from Roddy. ‘Having fun?’
‘We were,’ Scott said.
Uncle Doug made a point of letting his grin slip. ‘Was I talking to you?’
‘I thought you weren’t coming until tomorrow,’ Tim said.
His uncle looked at his watch. ‘It is tomorrow – if you know what I mean.’ He turned to Roddy. ‘So, let me introduce myself. I’m Tim’s favourite uncle.’ He held out his hand to Roddy. ‘I’m Doug. You can call me Mr Milmullen.’
Roddy looked unsure, glanced over his shoulder at Gully and Scott. He didn’t want to look intimidated in front of his new-found friends, so took Doug’s hand with a sneery grin.
‘Hello there.’ Doug pumped Roddy’s arm hard. Harder. ‘Good to meet you.’ He didn’t let go and he was squeezing hard. He made to take a step forward, stumbled accidentallyon-purpose, and pushed Roddy right to the edge of the pier.
Roddy let out a yelp, and windmilled his free arm, his weight pulling him over. His foot slipped – he was going in.
But Uncle Doug yanked him back to safety. Dragged him so forcefully that his knees crunched as he fell forward onto the wooden planks.
‘Whoa! Saved your life there, Big Guy.’ Doug grinned down at him. ‘You owe me one.’
Roddy slowly got to his feet, glaring at the man, undisguised loathing darkening his eyes.
Uncle Doug included the others in his smile. ‘So, it’s been a pleasure, but I’ve just driven all the way up from London and I’m gagging for a hot cup of tea. I’d invite you all to join me, but I’ve decided I don’t like you. Pick your cans and fag ends up on your way off our property. Goodbye.’
Gully looked like he didn’t have a clue what had just happened. ‘We’re staying here,’ he said. ‘In the guesthouse.’
‘Are you? Oh well, guess our Bill can’t pick and choose his customers these days. But that should change soon, with any luck.’
Scott said, ‘Are you going to let us in, then?’ And even now he still had that underlying edge to his voice.
‘Guess I’ll have to if you’re paying for the privilege.’
Without a word, but somehow not seeming to back down, Scott slouched back along the pier towards the house. Gully flicked the last of his cigarette into the water and sloped after him.
Roddy didn’t want to go. He was the type who needed to have the last word in a situation like this. ‘See you at school, Monster Boy.’ But he was quick to scuttle away once he’d said it.
Uncle Doug watched them go without losing his smile for an instant. ‘Well, well, well,’ he said to Tim. ‘Want to talk about it?’
‘Well . . . Not really.’
‘No worries.’
Tim started to collect the frozen bits of feed that had been dropped.
‘Just kick it in,’ Doug told him, and booted the fox over the side.
As they walked back towards Mourn Home Tim said, ‘Don’t tell Dad, will you?’
‘No need to worry about that, Tim, lad. We’ll just tell him you woke up when you heard me clattering about letting myself in. He need never know, eh?’
‘It’s just that . . . I don’t think I’m exactly, you know, flavour of the month at the minute.’
Uncle Doug once again put his arm around his nephew’s shoulders. ‘Timmo, believe me, I’ve kept darker secrets than this from my brother over the years.’
And Tim suddenly felt hopeful. Maybe he’d find an ally in Uncle Doug, someone to understand. He held onto that hope as they walked back along the pier.