Why was Mum always on his back, always so quick to lose her temper? It only made his flare. The fire in Elliot’s belly would rise to meet her blaze, no matter how much he tried not to let it. He felt the anger take his hands, making them fists so tight it hurt his fingers.
He would run away. Run down to the village, get on a bus back to town. Stupid. Where would he go? They had nowhere else. He wasn’t as foolish as she thought he was. Mum always looked at him like he was thick, explaining things like he was a baby. She never talked to Oli like that.
The terrible pain that blackened the back of his eyes churned in his stomach. It didn’t help that he was hungry. He’d eaten breakfast early when Mum had told him to go downstairs and let Oli sleep, but now it had to be nearly eleven. He fancied cake. He’d head back soon, but first, he would go and explore.
The old woman had handed him a twisted walking stick from the rack near the massive front door. ‘It is made from the hazel trees in the woods at the far end of our lands,’ she had said. ‘It is special.’
‘The woods?’ he had asked.
‘Both.’ A smile, something extra, glinted in her eye. ‘The woods and the walking stick. The hazel tree holds magic, so this is very special.’
Elliot had taken it with an eager grip, felt its smooth polish swirl in his fingers. It felt good just holding it.
‘Look after it, mind. It belonged to someone powerful.’ She bent closer with those last whispered words. He’d felt her breath on his ear and seen Mum’s glare.
‘Go be Lord Hardacre for a little while. Roam your grounds.’
Those words had made his heart thump faster, and Mum’s eyes crease with anger. She was always angry with him. The blackness in Mum’s eyes mirrored the one in the hollow of his belly. Both had become thicker since they’d arrived.
The walking stick struck the ground with deep stabs. Its end dug into the earth. The grass was sparing in patches, small clumps of dull green among the expanse of cold dirt. The lawn, or what had once, lay sprawled in front of him as far as he could see. There wasn’t this much space to run in the park—too many footpaths, flowerbeds, and old ruins there. But here, he let the open space fill the void that had been growing inside him for weeks, a cavity that had been rotting away like a bad tooth. He’d tried to fill it with books, burying his head in his comics or drawing pictures with the colouring pencils Dad bought him the last time they went out together. Anything to take the bitter taste from his mouth. The bitter tang of missing his dad.
The memory would have been a mundane throwaway glint in time, but it remained still. It had been a quick trip into town, but the events that followed made the occasion fuse to his thoughts like a sticky toffee to his school jumper.
‘Come on, Elliot,’ Dad had said. ‘Let’s get out for a while, just you and me.’
Elliot had leapt at the chance.
They caught the bus into town, wandering the shops, in turn ticking off the items on the shopping list Dad kept in the pocket of his navy corduroy trousers. ‘One last shop, then we’ll head home if that’s okay with you, champ?’
Elliot nodded, not caring how many boring shops they visited or how heavy the string shopping bag was in his little hand. He beamed up at his dad.
A lady stood in the doorway, a young girl by her side, holding the glass door open for them. The memory stuck in his head, the sight of their pale skin and bright red hair. That, and the girl held a giant colouring book and the longest pack of colouring pens Elliot had ever seen. Her large eyes flashed as she smiled.
‘This way, up the stairs,’ Dad said. ‘Think you can make it with that heavy bag?’
With an eager nod, Elliot rushed up the steps as his dad took them two at a time—a game they played every time they found themselves on the white-tiled steps that cornered around to the upper floor of the shop, greeted by the familiar smell of coffee and cakes.
‘Fancy a milkshake?’
‘And a jam doughnut, Dad?’
‘Course. It’s not a real milkshake without its partner. Some things just come in pairs, don’t they?’ Dad ruffled the top of Elliot’s head, tousling his mousey hair.
Elliot followed him through the shelves of stationery, notebooks, and brightly coloured packets of pens. His heart halted, bumping straight into the back of his dad, who had stopped dead in the centre of the aisle.
‘Dad?’
Elliot grabbed the back of his dad’s jacket. He couldn’t see what or who stood in front of them, but he knew from somewhere inside his chest that it wasn’t good. He buried his face in the soft weave of his dad’s jacket, his eyes barely open, seeing nothing but the bright-blue material. Tension stiffened his dad’s body vibrating into his, filling him with panic. The heavy silence made his ears hum, his head pound.
Elliot shifted a little, peering around to see a figure. He quickly glanced both sides of the aisle towards the end and the café that awaited them. Shoppers were everywhere, all doing ordinary things.
‘Greetings, Andrew.’
Dad gripped Elliot’s arm, pushing him behind.
‘It is time for you to come home.’
Panic ran Elliot through like a sword, cold, slick, with a strange taste of metal in his mouth. Mum and Oli—was something wrong with them? Did they need to go home?
His dad’s grip loosened a touch, followed by a pat. Elliot knew what that meant: Be quiet. It’s okay.
Between his fingers and the haze of blue material, Elliot peered at the figure. It was a man. But it shifted a touch like a bedsheet Mum had hung on the washing line, gently swaying in folds, there but not there. Though this wasn’t white but black. The voice spoke again; the words sounded too distant to make out. Again, Dad didn’t answer. This time, the figure pressed its hands together in front of its chest. It had reminded Elliot of school assembly when they sat cross-legged on the floor, their hands together to recite the Lord’s prayer.
The hitch in his breath had lingered, burning his chest, still holding the air in his lungs when Dad crouched in front of him, pressed his large hands on either side of his cold cheeks, and kissed the top of his head. ‘It’s okay, Elliot. Let’s go home.’
He shook his head to block out the humming, a deep, swirling sensation about to drown him. ‘Make it stop.’
‘Deep breaths. Look at me. Keep your eyes on mine. Deep breaths, champ, the feeling will pass, I promise.’
‘Who was that?’
‘You mustn’t worry.’
But he had been afraid, and he’d been terrified every day since. Even if Dad hadn’t felt the dread that had seeped from the folds of that bedsheet man, Elliot had.
There had been no milkshake that day. The churning sensation had quashed that idea, so too had the thought of the bumpy bus journey home. His dad guided him back to the bright shelves of colouring pencils. Elliot nodded as Dad reached the highest shelf for a large metal tin of colouring pencils and a thick drawing pad.
‘This will keep you out of trouble for a while,’ Dad said smiling, ruffling Elliot’s hair.
They had walked home. It was a short stroll, with every step relished and detested. Elliot concentrated all his efforts on seeing nothing but the staggered lines between the concrete paving slabs.
‘Don’t stand on the cracks, Dad. That’s bad luck.’
He had meant it too. All kids knew that adults couldn’t see the truth in such things. Why hadn’t Dad listened to him? If he had, he’d still be with them. They’d still be at home, and they’d never have known about the Priory or the old lady with the strange face.
Elliot gripped the walking stick and stabbed it into the grass. The blackness rose in him as he speared the ground over and over. With two white-knuckled hands, his teeth biting into his lower lip, he used the power that rose into his shoulders to plunge the stick into the ground. Again and again, it cut through the earth. Every stab was born of fear and pain. The foundations of the Priory, his ancestors, history, lay within every root and stem, rumbled beneath his feet, and climbed to meet his frustration. The ground shuddered, then ruptured. Generations of heartache bled up through the gouges in the earth until they spilt over the shattered land.
Many minutes passed before he moved. The earth was no longer brown, natural, but red. Spewing out of the broken ground, frothing, and oozing like a school science project. Elliot took a small step back. He should have moved earlier and quicker—his new trainers ruined, stained crimson like blood.
The sight was far too mesmerising.
He should have been afraid, but the notions swirled and tumbled over themselves as they tried to gain a foothold. His keenness was too great, too immense for his curiosity to comprehend. So, he stood knee-deep in the crimson mass, waiting for it to bubble and swallow him whole.
†
‘MUM.’
Oliver threw himself down the stairs, tripping over his feet as he stumbled to the tiled floor below. Nancy was already there, staring wide-eyed. Panic quickened, rising in his chest.
‘What is it? Are you okay?’ Her hands smothered, checking him over for some injury or other.
‘Not me,’ Oliver shouted.
‘Elliot?’
Oliver was at the front door before Nancy had a chance to react. His little hand tugged on the cold iron ring.
Estelle reached over him and freed the handle. ‘There you go, but wait for your mum.’
‘No time!’
He was out. Thick panic rose in his throat. If he stopped, he’d be sick.
Keep running, keep running.
The grass was hard under his slippers. There’d been no time to dress, so he pounded down the grounds in his flannel pyjamas. He knew where Elliot was, didn’t need to see. He’d felt it surge through him and leach around his legs, as real as the wet cold on his feet. The twisted, spiky oak branches pulled him towards it.
† † †
Josiah observed from the highest point of the Priory. The stone rose window that glared out as a blind eye had always assured the best view of the grounds. From up here, he had watched many a child play till they were lost. This boy was not the first, though Josiah sincerely hoped from deep inside his hollow chest, he would be the last.
There had been those times in the lost past, in the place where his heart had once beaten, when the child’s fate would have filled him with dread. His mind and all he knew to be true had battled with sword and dagger against the mournful loss. Now, however, he did no such thing. History—his and of those who had come since—told him it was a pointless task, a folly to satisfy the feeble.
This Elliot, one half of a whole, was different from the rest. These twins were not like the others. From floor to roof, he heard it being said. The walls were chanting it so.
Josiah had sat within the carved frame in the stone window’s arc, his feet and arms crossed and watched as the boys had arrived.
Their mother was a curious thing. He had stood by her bed the first night, watching her. Perhaps it was wrong, though drawn to her, he had found himself there regardless. His brother had told him to never do such a thing in case they felt his presence. To be so bold was a sin.
This mother, though… She was not one of them, and the Priory knew it. It had allowed her in. Josiah recognised her from the past, though it played like yesterday. Where time cast a shadow beneath the eyes of visitors, it was a blink to him. She had been young then—not a child or a lady. The walls had sung her entrance then, too, in a regretful lament for on her departure, she had taken the Last. Yet here she was and with none other than her twins. Perhaps it would play with her a while, just till it grew tired. He had no hold over what deeds the Priory conducted, nor could he stop the terrible darkness from bleeding up from under the foundations. It passed its own judgements for right or wrong.
This evil was gathering at the roots of the oak. Even as Josiah watched, it threatened to swallow the child whole.