Oliver had barely touched his cocoa, whereas Elliot had stuck his finger in twice, swirling it around the inside edge until the brown skin that had formed puckered on his finger. Mum would normally have turned her nose up in silent scorn with a wide-eyed warning.
Mum had told them to sit on the settee, still. She made a great deal of fuss over it, repeating the word over and over like an order—because it was an order. She had become moody since Dad died. She never smiled. Oliver always thought how pretty she was with her long brown hair and golden eyes. Dad had said once how he’d lost himself in those eyes. Oliver had no idea what he’d meant. Something about love, he imagined. Sometimes when she smiled, he saw that she was beautiful. Now her eyes were grey, dull, and empty. Lifeless like Dad’s body.
Oliver knew her sadness. It seeped into his skin when he looked at her. Those first few nights after Dad had died, he’d lain awake when the world was asleep and watched Elliot in the next bed, willing him to wake up; he never did. But he’d heard Mum. She never slept. Her back-and-forth footsteps in her bedroom became a rhythm, a repetitive thud, that gently lulled him to sleep…
Much like the pendulum of the grandfather clock next to the settee did now. It sent shivers through him.
Elliot sat closest to it—he had made sure of that. It felt like it had been waiting for him. The rest of the room had almost faded away from sight, leaving him and that clock. Elliot had pushed him onto the settee, kicking the back of his knee on purpose. Oliver had scrambled onto it as far away from the clock as he could get.
The settee was hard, a shade of gold like the setting sun—warm but leaving at any moment only to be greeted by darkness. Oliver ran his hand over a blue cushion with long tassel corners. It was not soft as it should have been. Cushions were supposed to be comfortable; all it gave him was distress.
They nudged each other with their bony elbows when the old lady entered the room. There was a stoop to her shoulders and an arch to her back. Her thin arms seemed unnaturally long as she leant on a wooden walking stick, but her eyes were bright, and so was her dress. One mug in hand, she whistled through the door, the tune entering before her. She left the room to repeat the journey, each time with just one mug.
‘I do not get many visitors. I could have asked Lizzie to bring us tea but thought I would quite like to do it myself. It is an occasion after all,’ she muttered, as much to herself as to them.
Occasion. The old lady had given special attention to that word, and so, too, had the boys. Occasion usually meant a birthday or special treat, not this.
Oliver glanced at his mother, who stared at the ceiling with glassy eyes like his action man, waiting to strike if needs be. Not once did she offer to help bring the drinks in. So unlike her. Mother was a nice lady, always helping the neighbours, chatting to the other mothers at the school gate. She often popped to the shops for old Mr Beardsmore, too. Now she barely said a word to anyone except Elliot and him. She was angry. This old lady made her even more so.
Elliot bashed his feet together to annoy his twin, which jolted the settee. ‘Is there a telly?’
The old lady pondered a while until the boys saw a twinge of a smile on her mouth. ‘There is.’ A full smile now. ‘I imagined you might like one. It is set up in the old study. It has not been used as such for decades, so a television room for you boys will put it to good use. Not too much, mind.’
Nancy gave a curt nod to the boys.
‘Thank you,’ they said.
‘But there will need to be some rules too,’ she added. ‘The Priory is old and needs to be treated with respect.’ The twins glanced at each other. ‘There are some things that you must never do, and some that you must always.’
She sat in a high-back armchair. It reminded them of one they’d seen in a shop window on the way through the village. Mum had said it sold antiques, though they didn’t know what that meant. Oliver imagined it meant old stuff.
‘You must promise to do exactly as I ask.’ Her face became stern, and her blonde hair had dimmed a little in the chair’s shadow. Its high sides closed in as she sat back, her hands clasped in her lap.
She didn’t look scary but quite pretty, so why did her face send shivers over Oliver’s skin? Mum always told him to trust his instincts if something felt wrong. She looked at him now, and Oliver nudged his twin, who jumped.
‘You are very welcome here. This is your home—that is the most important thing. Within the walls, inside the house, you are safe as long as you remember to treat the place with respect.’ The old lady’s eyes cast high to the ceiling. The boys followed them and saw the fractured crack in the plasterwork. ‘You are not the only children the Priory has seen, after all. There have been many children here.’
His mum’s eyes flashed her way. ‘They will behave themselves.’ She shot them a cautionary stare. ‘Won’t you?’
They quickly nodded.
Elliot shuffled, eager to go and escape into Scooby-Doo. Anything to bolt. Oliver, however, was far too intrigued as the old lady traced her finger over a worn stain on the leather arm of her chair. It looked like a heart. Over and over, her finger trailed until she clapped and pressed her hands to her lips.
‘Is anyone hungry? Lizzie can arrange some sandwiches for supper before you settle into bed.’
‘Please,’ replied Elliot. ‘Do you have peanut butter? The crunchy one?’
‘I think we can find you some.’ The old lady beamed as she rose from her chair, with tiny steps wandered to the window and then back to the fireplace.
‘Thank you, that would be good,’ his mum said. ‘I’ll get our stuff upstairs.’ She looked like she wanted to get out of there. Oliver saw beads of sweat on her forehead as she trailed her finger over the graze on her palm.
‘Oh, no need, my dear. Dawson and Lizzie have arranged them already. We were expecting you, after all.’ The old lady smiled. Mum didn’t. Oliver saw her lip turn up like the time he’d brought worms in from the garden or Dad bought a cup of whelks at the market.
The maid appeared with a tray of sandwiches, china tea plates, and a large sponge cake. Wide-eyed, the boys took their plates and piled them high with peanut butter triangles. Elliot dived in, his mouth full when he gulped down some orange squash.
Oliver, however, couldn’t take his eyes off the old lady with the odd face. They’d been told to call her grandmother, but they didn’t know her. They’d never met her or been to this house. She didn’t have the grey hair that lots of old people had. She was old, he could see that, but at the same time, she wasn’t. He felt it behind her eyes, much like when he and Elliot had dressed up for Halloween last year. Elliot had worn a horrible werewolf mask, hairy with big teeth. It had scared Oliver when he first watched his twin walk down the stairs. He had to look hard at his eyes to see Elliot. Grandmother was the same. Maybe this was a mask too. Perhaps she was young under there.
Mum had never spoken of her. The first they heard of her was when Mum had hauled the suitcases out of the loft and thrown them onto the beds.
‘Pack your stuff,’ she’d ordered.
The boys had done nothing for a moment or two, confused.
‘For a holiday?’ Elliot had asked when Oliver went to open his mouth. He’d known there was more to it—it had been brewing in Mum’s eyes like a heavy storm since the funeral.
‘Not a holiday, no. Just pack a case each. We leave first thing.’
They had spent a few nights in a guest house in town. The owner had been an old school friend of Dad’s, Mum had explained. They’d gone back home, but not to stay.
The boys had been told to go play at the bottom of the garden. Mum had stayed in the house and looked out of the front room window. Oliver hadn’t seen the couple from London arrive until Mum followed them around the garden. The lady with her posh hat had pointed at Mum’s peony shrub and turned her nose up, making arm gestures that made her look like one of the men he’d seen on TV who wore yellow jackets and signalled planes to land. The posh couple had bought the house. Oliver had heard Mum cry that evening. He’d walked up the stairs and seen her sitting on her bed, a pile of soggy tissues by her feet. He hadn’t said anything, just sat beside her, his young arm wrapped around hers. Mum had rested her head on his and gripped his hand.
‘It will be all right, Mum.’
‘She’s going to pull up the peony, Oli.’ She’d cried harder. ‘And they aren’t that posh either.’
Oliver squirmed on the settee and shoved the lumpy cushion behind his back. He’d been watching the old lady, her slow steps; she didn’t sit or look at Mum. Instead, she paced the room, first to the window with her palm on the cold glass, then the fireplace, her back to the flames. Now she stood before the boys, her hands clasped in front of her.
‘You can call me Nan if you like, or maybe Gran. I do not mind, whichever you like best.’ The old lady smiled as she said it, but there was a strangeness to the words as if they meant something entirely different.
The twins didn’t answer, though Oliver nodded slightly. Elliot was eyeing something that hung above the fireplace.
‘Ah, the swords. A tempting sight for young boys, I know. I remember your—’
Elliot didn’t notice or care that she broke off, but it only made Oliver more curious. If she was their nan, then she was Dad’s mother. Oliver knew it was rude to stare, but it was difficult to keep his eyes from straying. Every time they did, she was watching. Something about her eyes made him want to hide, a familiarity that clutched his heart and squeezed it until he felt sick.
With a great urge to run away, Oliver gripped Elliot’s hand. But then, his eyes caught the clock in the corner. It stared back at him with its bland, white face and almost unmoving hands. Oliver glared at it until his eyes burned as he waited for the minute hand to move. But it didn’t, and yet the pendulum swung until his eyes closed.
The hot cocoa went cold, and the sun sunk in a stark glow over the far trees.
†
Oliver awoke in the dark. His eyes desperate to adjust, he grappled with the layers of blankets with no recollection of how he’d come to be there. His memory was vague and white—white landscape, white sky, white face of the staring clock. Panic climbed from his chest to his throat and drenched him as if he were about to be sick. He remembered the feeling, and it gripped him as it had before, taking hold until his body shuddered and sweat dripped from his forehead, his breath quick and shallow. But Mum had been there before, holding him tight, whispering to calm him. They’d sat until the sun rose, until the hand he held stiffened and went cold in his trembling fingers. In his other, he’d gripped a tiny shard of something that had fallen from dad’s hand while keeping his eyes on his dad’s blank stare.
The memory was still raw. He clenched his eyes so he wouldn’t cry.
‘Elliot?’ he called.
He listened but only found silence.
They hadn’t made it upstairs when they arrived. There’d been no tour of the house, no exploring farther than the massive room with swords above the fireplace. The lumpy blue cushions on the settee were all they’d seen. He knew little about the house, hadn’t known it existed until a few days before, yet he was tucked into a bed in a dark room he’d never seen. Fear scuttled spider legs over his body; panic of what lay within the blackness rushed at him.
‘Elliot, are you there? Please?’
Oliver scrambled out of bed, wrestling with the sheet over his chest. It gave way, and he fell to the floor with a smack. For a second or two, he sat waiting for the sound to dissipate into the air. He willed an answer from his brother, a hint to know he wasn’t alone. Surely the noise had woken him.
Oliver thought of Dad again. He should miss him. Everyone assumed he did. Part of him was relieved. That part, he hated. Dad had betrayed him, let him down. Mum was angry, and she hated the place and the old lady—Oliver knew that much by looking at her face. She had tried to hide all the disappointment at first until she no longer cared. The pain had been manageable. Everyone felt sadness and misery when someone died, didn’t they? But that hadn’t lasted long with Mum. Maybe that had rubbed off on him. Elliot never seemed to notice anything, but then Elliot hadn’t been there that morning. Only Oliver had seen what had happened.
‘Are you awake?’
Nothing came back. The house was soundless, a dense, ear-numbing, unnatural quiet.
They had lived in town where it was busy. Their house had been one in a long terrace just off the main road that drove straight into the town centre; the hum of cars was a steady flow through the night hours. It was comforting to know that others were out there, that he wasn’t alone. He had Elliot, of course, so he was never truly by himself.
Oliver wanted to go home. The lump in his throat threatened to choke him; he bit back the tears as he got to his feet.
The floor was cold. Tentatively, he took a step, then another. His toes touched the rough edge of a carpet. He half-heartedly called out again. There was no point—Elliot, wherever he was, wasn’t within the dark walls. The skin of his neck bristled. Rubbing his hands over his arms and feeling the flannel of his new pyjamas—printed with knights on horseback, dragons, and castles—Oliver thought of his mother. She’d let him choose them. Elliot had The Incredible Hulk, his favourite. He watched every Saturday evening right in front of the TV, slumped on his belly and his legs crossed behind him.
‘You will get square eyes sitting that close,’ Dad said.
It didn’t matter now; he hadn’t watched it since.
The pyjamas were warm, but Oliver shivered with cold sweat, slowly dripping down the crevice between his shoulder blades. Mother had got him undressed and put him to bed, even if he couldn’t remember any of it. So, that meant everything was all right. He was safe, wasn’t he? She was somewhere inside this house, tucked up warm in a bed. No, she wasn’t. Oliver knew she would be pacing the floor, just like she had every night since.
A small light caught his eye. Focussing hard on the far side of the room, he headed towards it. The low glow seeped in under the door. Within it was a shadow.
Someone was there.
Oliver pressed the back of his hand over his mouth and held his breath. The shadow moved and took the light with it, leaving nothing but obscurity to grow at his feet. He felt his twin, his voice in his head and a shudder of fear creeping beneath his pyjamas. Where was Elliot?
As rapid as the pounding in Oliver’s chest, the sweep of light returned with quick footsteps. With sweaty palms, he reached for the doorknob, his hands fumbled over the door, trying to find it. As his fingers met the cold metal, a fierce bolt shot up his arm. It flung him back, and he landed flat on the floor. The air was sucked from his lungs. He felt panic, fear, the air thick with dust closing in to choke him. He was no longer in the darkness of the bedroom but curled up tight inside a small black hole as a voice whispered in his ear.
Oliver screamed, curled his arms about his head to block out the voice.
‘Leave me alone,’ he wept.
With slow, deep breaths, the room opened. The shadowy corners fell away beyond his reach. He felt small, lost, and forgotten.
‘Oli?’ A beam of light hit his toes, with a gentle creak, the door opened inwards. ‘Come, look what I found.’
Elliot, torch in his hand, stood inside the open door. He flicked the light over the space, which sent a yellow glow into the room just short of his twin. Oliver stared with one hand over his eyes. The Hulk stared back. He leapt into the hallway towards Elliot, gripped his arm and his shoulders. The repressed fear that had slowly edged its way beneath his flannel pyjamas swamped him, and the tears flowed.
‘Where were you?’ he bawled. ‘Why aren’t you in bed?’
‘Oliver.’ Something odd edged his twin’s voice.
‘What?’ He stood back a pace, trying to find Elliot’s face in the gloom. The torch pointed at the floor.
‘You need to come, see what I found.’
In the deep darkness, the twins crept down the narrow staircase to the main gallery landing. A glint of cold light skulked in from an open door at the end of the hallway.
Elliot nudged him, his face hidden behind the torchlight. ‘I think that door was closed when I first came down. Quick, before someone sees.’
‘Who is it?’
‘I don’t know. The old lady, maybe?’
Oliver could do nothing but follow; his feet fell in his twin’s steps whether they wanted to or not. They stumbled down the sweeping staircase, their hands skimming over the age-smooth bannisters.
‘Down here,’ Elliot whispered, his fingers over his mouth to muffle his voice. He swept the torch over a carved door panel. Smaller than the wide door of the drawing-room, it sat along the far wall, in the shadow of the upper gallery landing. ‘Come on.’ He pulled his brother closer.
The door gave way with a gentle creak as both boys tumbled into the room, then swiftly closed behind them. The torch sliced through the darkness. Oliver grabbed it and waved it around the space, so the thread-beam streaked the walls. It wasn’t big like the room with the swords but still bigger than their old living room.
‘Why were you down here?’
Elliot shrugged. ‘Dunno.’
The torchlight found an old settee, a chair with a small round table, and a brass lamp on a pile of books. Oliver clicked the switch under the orange tassel lampshade, and now the room glowed with unnatural warmth. A tiny chink of light through the curtains was the only distraction from the panelled walls. Oliver almost tripped on the edge of the thick rug as he ran to the heavy curtains and dragged them open. The window was black. Nothing lay beyond the glass, only his reflection.
‘This is a bad idea,’ Oliver whimpered. ‘We shouldn’t be in here. I don’t like it. Why were you in here?’
‘Yes, we should. Look, there’s the TV… It’s gonna be our room, I suppose.’
‘I still don’t like it.’
‘Look.’ Elliot ran his fingers over a low panel on the wall behind the door. It gave a soft squeak as the old wood rubbed on the floor. Then, after a thump, it gave way. Both boys sunk to their knees and peered down into the hidden space.
‘What do you think it is?’ Oliver asked. ‘A cupboard?’
‘Don’t think so.’ Elliot leant a touch farther as the darkness swallowed his head.
Oliver grabbed the back of his brother’s pyjama top. ‘Don’t,’ he yelped. ‘It feels wrong.’ Fear engulfed him again, that sensation of being lost and forgotten. ‘We need to leave right now.’
‘Look at this.’ Elliot pulled something free from the cavity. ‘Why would it be down there?’ He turned to Oliver and showed him the small object.
Elliot ran his palm over the surface, wiping away dusty cobwebs and spider corpses. He held it up, so his face stared back. The round mirror rested easy in his hands, his fingers gripped each side as he pointed it towards the lamplight. The frame was carved, back and front with acorns and oak leaves. He turned it over, and again his own face looked back.
‘It’s the same both sides, see?’
Oliver took it, rotating it in his hands. It was heavy as if pushing his feet into the floor and sinking him into the carpet. His leaden limbs crumbled. He flung the object and pushed it away with his foot.
‘It doesn’t feel right.’
‘It’s just a mirror, Oli.’ Elliot grabbed it and held it up between them.
Oliver sat forward, squinting as he levelled up to the mirror. He stared hard. Behind him was no longer the orange light of the tassel lampshade or the black reflection of the window. It was now daylight, bright and welcoming. Yet as he moved, there was something else. It darted in and out of view, almost playing with him. It grew thick and black, a swirling shadow without definition or shape. It swallowed the light until it had eaten it whole, leaving nothing behind but the bones of darkness.
† † †
Hidden in the shadows of the forgotten corners of the panelling stood another boy. Samuel had watched from the round rose window as the car had crunched through the gravel. He had not been alone in his interest, their curiosity as keen as his. It had been some years since there had been such an arrival. The oak tree had told him they were coming—these curious twins, the boys of winter. One would have been enough; Samuel knew that well, all that was ever needed, but here again, were two.
He pushed his hand to his heart and willed it to beat so he could steady the sickening panic that rose in his throat. He had no control. What was to be, was to be, whether he had his say or not. No one would listen—it had always been the same.
An arm wrapped around his small shoulders and coaxed away those terrible memories. ‘You cannot save him,’ they said. ‘This story will play out just as yours did.’
‘It still does.’
The arms held him tighter. There was a lost lingering of warmth. ‘Try not to fret so, child. It will only make it worse.’
‘Am I to live in this forever?’ Samuel asked.
‘No, dear child. Not forever. Just until their story ends.’