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A WARNING
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“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.
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“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.
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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. It’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 theirowner 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.
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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 wastempted 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.
It was a mile to the village. Matt quickly arrived at the broken sign where the five roads met. The wood was all around him and he was glad that Mrs Deverill had shown him which road to take, as they all looked the same. No cars passed. Nothing moved. Matt had never felt more alone as he pedalled on. The last part of the road was uphill and he had to work to get the bike to the top. Despite the oil, he could hear it groaning beneath him. But ahead of him he could see the outer buildings of Lesser Malling and before long he pulled into the village square.
Mrs Deverill had already warned him that there wasn’t much to Lesser Malling and she was certainly right. The village was small and self-contained with a dull, half-dilapidated church, a pub called The Goat and two rows of shops and houses facing each other across an empty, cobbled area. A war memorial stood in the middle, a slab of grey stone engraved with twenty or thirty names. All of the shops looked fifty years out of date. One sold sweets, the next general groceries, another antiques. At the end of the row was a butcher’s. Matt could see chickens hanging by their feet, their necks broken. Slabs of meat, grey and sweating, lay spreadout on the counter. A large man with a beard and a blood-splattered apron chopped down with an axe. Matt heard the metal as it sliced through bone.
There were quite a few people around and as he rested the bicycle against the war memorial, more of them appeared, coming from all sides of the square. Matt sensed that they had been drawn here because of him. Their faces were more curious than welcoming. He saw them stop, some distance away, and whisper among themselves. It was unnerving, being the centre of attention in this forgotten community. He had no doubt that they all knew exactly who he was and why he was here.
A woman walked towards him and she seemed familiar. She had long white hair, a tiny head and black eyes that could have belonged to a doll. As she came nearer, he saw that she had been disfigured by a birthmark. An ugly mauve blotch covered one side of her face. He thought back to when he was ill. Had this woman been in his room at Hive Hall?
She walked right up to him. “How nice to see you back on your feet, Matthew, ” she said. She had a squeaky, rasping voice and seemed to strangle the words at the back of her throat. “My name is Claire Deverill. You’re staying with my sister. ”
So he was right. He had seen her before.
“I am the head teacher at the primary school here in Lesser Malling, ” she went on. “You may be joining us soon. ”
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“I’m too old for primary school, ” Matt said.
“But too stupid, I’m afraid, for secondary school. I’ve seen your reports. You’ve done no work. You know very little. Not a good example for the other children. ”
Another woman– tall and thin – had appeared, pushing an antique pram. The wheels squeaked as they turned. “Is this the boy? ” she demanded.
“It is indeed, Miss Creevy. ” Claire Deverill smiled.
Matt glanced down at the pram. There was no baby. Miss Creevy was nursing a large china doll. It looked up at Matt with a frozen smile and wide, empty eyes.
“I’m looking for the chemist, ” Matt said. Suddenly he wanted to be out of here. He was beginning to wish he’d never come.
“It’s over there. ” Claire Deverill pointed. “Next to the sweet shop. ”
Two more women had appeared on the far side of the village, in front of the church. They looked like ragged scarecrows, their black coats flapping in the breeze. They were identical twins. At the same time, a short, fat man with blue and green tattoos on his arms, face and head stepped out of the pub. He was smoking a clay pipe. He saw Matt and began to laugh. Matt walked away before he could get too close.
It was no surprise really that everyone in Lesser Malling seemed to be a little mad. You’d have to be to live in a place as forlorn as this, Matt thought. There was a pond near the church and he noticed a group of children feeding the ducks. He went over to them but as soon as he was close he saw that he was going to find no friends here. There was a ten-year-old boy with strange, greenish hair and fat legs bulging out of short trousers. A couple of girls– sisters – stood together in identical, old-fashioned dresses and pigtails. The last boy was about seven and crippled, one of his legs enclosed in a metal calliper. Matt would have felt sorry for him but as he approached, the boy pulled out a BB gun and, smiling, took aim at the ducks. QuicklyMatt kicked out, sending loose gravel into the water. The ducks flew away. The boy fired at them and missed.
“What did you do that for? ” one of the girls demanded sulkily.
“What are you doing? ” Matt asked.
“We feed the ducks and then Freddy kills them, ” the other girl explained. “It’s a game! ”
“A game? ”
“Sitting ducks! ” both girls chorused.
Freddy reloaded the gun. Matt shook his head in disgust. He left the children and walked back to the chemist.
The shop was like nothing he had ever seen before: a dark, evil-smelling place with rows of wooden shelves. There were some boxes of headache pills and a few packets of soap, but mostly the shelves were stacked with old bottles. Some of these were filled with powders, some with dried herbs. Others contained strange, lumpy objects, floating in murky water. Matt read some of the handwritten labels: Nux Vomica. Aconite. Wormwood. They meant nothing to him. He found a flask filled with yellow liquid and turned it round, then almost cried out as a severed eye floated to the surface, kissing the edge of the glass. The eye had been taken from a sheep or a cow. It was trailing tissue behind it. Matt felt sick.
“Can I help you? ”
It was the chemist; a short, ginger-haired man in a shabby white coat. The hair continued down his neck and there was more of it on the backs of his hands. He was wearing heavy black spectacles, which had sunk into his nose in such a way that Matt wondered if he ever took them off.
“What is this? ” Matt demanded.
“An eye. ”
“Why is it here? ”
The chemist turned the jar round and examined the specimen, his own eyes magnified by the lenses. “The vet requested it, ” he said. He sounded irritated. “He was doing tests. ”
“I’ve come to collect something for Mrs Deverill. ”
“Oh yes. You must be Matthew then. We’ve all been looking forward to meeting you. We’ve all been looking forward to it very much. ”
The chemist produced a small package, wrapped in brown paper and tied with string. “My name is Barker. I hope I’ll be seeing more of you. In a village like this, it’s always nice to have new blood. ” He handed the packet over. “Do drop in again any time. ”
Matt came out of the shop, noticing that more of the villagers had arrived in the square. There were at least a dozen of them, talking among themselves. He hurried over to the bike. There was a bag behind the saddle and he thrust the package in. He just wanted to get back on the road, away from the village. But it wasn’t to be. As he wheeled the bicycle round, a hand suddenly appeared, grabbing hold of the handle-bars. Matt followed the arm it belonged to and found himself looking up at a man in his thirties with straw-coloured hair and a round, ruddy face. He was dressed in a baggy jersey and jeans. He was strong. Matt could tell that from the ease with which he held the bike.
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“Let me go! ”
Matt tried to pull the bike away but the man held on to it. “That’s not very friendly, ” he said. “What’s your name? ”
“Why do you want to know? ”
“You’re Matthew Freeman, aren’t you? ”
Matt said nothing. They were both still holding the bike. It had become a barrier between them.
“They sent you here on this project? ”
“That’s right. Yes. You all know that – so why ask? ”
“Listen to me, Matthew Freeman, ” he said suddenly. “You don’t want to be hanging around this village. You don’t want to be anywhere near here. Do you understand me? I shouldn’t be talking to you like this. But if you know what’s good for you, you’ll get away. You’ll go as far awayas you can and you won’t come back. Do you hear me? You need to-”
He broke off. The chemist had come out of his shop and was standing there in the doorway watching the two of them. The man let go of Matt’s bike and hurried away. He didn’t look back.
Matt got on to the bicycle and pedalled out of the village. Ahead of him, the pine trees waited, black and ominous. Already it was growing dark.
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