Cornish Gold at Summer's End, page 16
"Okay, listen, everybody," said Roddy, lowering his voice. "We need to be calm and careful about this. If we want to catch them in the act, we'll have to do things properly. Split into groups and try to search in quiet. Nobody should wander off, because it's dangerous down there — there's a steep pitch along some of the stream's banks. The old cottage probably isn't solid."
"Where did you see it?" Rosie asked the two paranormal hunters.
"That way." Vic pointed. "Between the trees. It could have been coming from the clearing."
"Let's go," said Rosie. "There's a break in the wall where explorers go into the wood, there's bound to be a less-steep trail there. Come on, Charlotte, let's you and I have a go at anything down there."
"I'll go with you, and we can circle around to the clearing," said Roddy.
"We'll take the cottage," suggested Troy. "There's three of us — if anybody else comes, maybe we can search all the rooms."
"I'll go," I said, raising my hand. I looked at Kitty, who shrugged, then nodded.
"We'll have a look along the clearing outside the old cottage," said a couple of Pete's younger patrons, who worked in the clothing shop on high street. They were holding hands as they ducked underneath one of the shrubs arching and pushing together to form a thick wall along the road.
Vic, Troy, and Florrie took the same route, with me and Kitty and a couple of regulars from the pub circling around the thick hedge, looking for a break closer to the cottage's old garden. Barberry branches snagged our coats and hair, and I felt a bramble catch the knee of my jeans. Florrie must have missed the bridge over the dried-up water channel and fallen into the ditch momentarily; we heard a little shriek of surprise that the other two hushed noisily.
By moonlight, the old cottage looked forlorn, with the remaining thatch sagging and rotten in several patches. The leaves of the brambles and ivy wrapped around the old icebox glowed silvery-white, and the plough disc's weeds looked like a fluffy fox's tail sticking up between the framework.
We crouched down. "I don't see any lights," I whispered to Kitty.
"Probably they shut off their torches," she whispered. "They know the ghost tour has gone on to the pub already."
We crept closer, weeds snapping against our jeans and coats, pausing as Kitty untangled her scarf from a broken wood plank leaning secretively against the old plough in the grass. Crashing noises in the bushes told us that the paranormal hunters were coming through the long way. In the woods, I heard the snap of a branch, and the sound of human voices speaking loudly for a word or two.
Whoever it is has run off by now, I thought. Unless it really was a paranormal force, in which case it simply disappeared in the wake of all this human activity. Standing in the shadow of the cottage, that funny feeling of watchfulness was back. Creepy old houses are my new phobia, I thought.
"We need to be careful," whispered Florrie. She pushed open the old door, peering inside. It was dark, but I could still see the leaves and the trash on the floor, with the help of the moonlight streaming through the nearby window.
Troy flashed a microphone-type device around the entryway. It emitted a few soft beeps. Signs of a spirit on the prowl, probably.
"The floors are rotten upstairs, I reckon," said Kitty.
"There's rooms enough, isn't there?" said one of the Fisherman's regulars, crowding in behind as we crossed the threshold after a period of hesitation. The floorboards creaked, and I could hear excited whispers as the paranormal team searched the first room. More beeps from the little machine, maybe?
I looked around me, expecting the bird from before to fly down from the rafters, but only a breeze was stirring the nests trailing down above, and the old cobwebs hanging raggedly from old timbers.
I kicked an old sardine tin lying under the leaves, which rolled against a few half-rotten apple cores. The kids must have been bringing snacks up here.
Kitty's flashlight explored the old kitchen. I heard the pantry closet creak open. Her beam played over old broken canning jars and a few canned preserves still full on the back of the middle shelf, everything draped in cobwebs.
"They didn't take all their harvest work with them," I whispered, before she shut the closet.
"Probably proper mold by now," she whispered back. "Between freezing and breaking the seal." I made a face, thinking of the bacteria involved.
We searched the floor's dust for footprints — one of the pub's regulars was poking a stick through the fireplace's dead embers, looking for signs of anything besides burnt-out matches.
I tested the stairs with one foot, cautiously, before I began climbing them, trying to avoid the creakiest boards, and the ones directly underneath a bad leak from the room above. I could hear a human voice, but knew it wasn't the local vandals whispering to each other.
"Here we are in the bedroom," Troy was narrating for the camera in a quiet voice. "Looks like nobody's been here in a long time."
"Those are holes in the mattress. Maybe they were put there by poltergeist activity." That was Florrie's voice.
I heard a soft yelp, as one of the pub's regulars found a soft spot in the floor near the hall's window, and shifted away from the board cracking underneath him. "This thing's open," he said. "It wouldn't be hard for a couple of tall boys to climb out and jump down onto the old wood shed below, if the roof's solid." He pointed down below.
I started to push open the door to the old washroom, but a bad smell from inside made me change my mind. The pile of feathers I glimpsed in the sink might belong to a bird that had passed from this life in that very spot, explaining the stench.
The other bedroom was empty, too, except for a three-legged bed frame without a mattress. "There's nothing here," said the pub regular. "They've gone through the window."
It was cold up here. I rubbed my arms through my jacket. It was a sign of the paranormal if you saw your breath, I thought, making a joke for my own benefit.
The paranormal investigators were trooping downstairs, still filming. When I came down, Vic had shut off the camera, and the three of them were standing in the entryway's patch of moonlight. Through the window, voices drifted from the other searchers.
"I'm getting nothing on the scan," said Troy. "Whatever it was, it's gone."
"Old Ray thinks it's just kids," scoffed Vic. "He's taking the group around to the back, thinking the kids went through the woods to the field."
Florrie sighed. "I guess that's it," she said. "Let's go try for the wood. Maybe the lights were coming from the stream."
Vic turned on the camera again and they went out into the weedy garden. Nobody was left but me, and Kitty, who came out of the room with the ruined sofa.
She looked at me. "No reason to hang around," she said, softly.
I nodded. The excitement was over. Our ghost — or misbehaving juveniles — had obviously decided not to put in an appearance for all the searchers combing the wood and the cottage. Most likely Ray was right, and the kids who had been scaring the ghost tour had made an escape from here.
It was quiet in the cottage. The floor sounded hollow under Kitty's boots as she crossed to the doorway to leave. My ears picked up the groan of the house settling somewhere above us.
My hands emerged from my pockets, holding onto the stairwell's frayed support rope as I climbed down. From above, I heard a quiet noise — a short creak from hinges that stopped short instead of dying away. I stopped and listened.
The soft hairs on the back of my neck were rising. That noise had been deliberate. My ears strained, listening for more sounds. I could hear a click, a soft thud.
Whoever it was, they were still here. I took a step back, trying not to make the boards creak too much. I turned around, easing my way back up the steps to the passage above. I glanced below, trying to see if Kitty was still waiting for me, but all I saw was a bit of orange from her scarf.
Nothing was in the hall, of course. This is crazy, Julianne. Turn back now. My flippant remark about criminals came back to me, with thoughts of the Mallivengy boy and his car thief friend on the prowl as well — what if there was someone dangerous hiding out here? Matt would kill me if he knew I was poking around alone, as a mature adult who knew all the rules about safety and common sense.
We already looked everywhere. Nobody's hiding here. Nobody could be here, because five of us just walked through these rooms. That would be the reason for the soft quills standing on my neck, and the chill underneath my jacket.
My boots thudded on the floorboards in the silence. I pushed open the first door on my right, belonging to the old bedroom with the torn mattress in it. The old mirror hung crazily over a waterstained bureau. Same stains on the mattress, same marks on the lime-white wall from a leak above. There had been a lot of thatch missing from the part of the roof now above me, I thought.
I only took a few steps inside, just enough to see water stains more clearly by moonlight, and see a perfect footprint in the dust, left by Troy's sneakers with a distinctive logo mark imprinted on the sole. Lots of leaves decorating the floor, bits of tufting pulled from the mattress by the birds, and the stub of a candle.
It lay by my shoe, and I bent down to pick it up. Little bits of wax had broken off around it. The stub in my hand felt slightly warm, which I thought was strange. When I looked at the bureau's top, I noticed circular rings in the dust, the same shape as the base — with bits of white flaked off around them.
I set the candle in one of them, and it was a perfect fit. I was fairly sure I didn't remember it being there before, when Kitty and I came. The paranormal team must have dislodged it.
The toe of my shoe swept aside the leaves by the dresser, finding more burnt matches in a little heap. Then I knew that it wasn't a coincidence, the stub and the fresh wax, the warm feeling of it in my hand. I caught my breath for a second, listening to the silence again. It could still be the pranksters, I told myself. But what had made the noise a moment ago, unless they found a place to hide?
My eye explored the room as my mind raced through the possibilities. My gaze landed on the far corner of the room, the part of the wall behind an old chair. That part wasn't lime wash and plaster, but boards. I was looking at a narrow little door with a latch, painted the same color as the wall.
I knew now what had caused the quiet squeak and the clicking noise when I was still below. That door belonged to the little attic space, one we had forgotten all about. The roof collapse was over the peak, and the little window visible from the outside was missing, along with the ceiling slant that would be here in this room if there wasn't a loft above.
Could anybody be up there? It must be ruins, if my memory of the collapsed thatch was correct. Whoever tried to scramble up to those ruins could have been hurt — they were going to get killed, possibly, if they tried to cross the rotten old roof timbers above.
My fingers curved around the latch, lifting it softly. I pressed the button, switching my mobile phone's torch to the bright setting as I lifted the metal catch and pulled the door open, shining the light into the dark passageway cramped on the other side. The top of the stair was choked with debris from the part of the roof that had fallen through to the attic, a haze of moonlight peeking through the chinks, but no hulking teenager standing at the top, trying to squeeze through. I flashed the light down, and saw the child crouched in a tight hunker just below.
We were both startled by the same bolt of surprise. I staggered back one step, concentrating the beam of light on the child in the midst of the rubble. Folded tightly, I couldn't see much except for pale skin and a grungy t-shirt and long short trousers full of holes. A shock of dark, wild hair and two frightened eyes locked on me.
I found my voice. "It's okay," I said, softly. "It's all right. Nobody's going to hurt you." With a reassuring smile, I took a step forward, but he cowered hastily back into the shadows, hiding his face. His sneakers were filthy, their laces covered in mud and cockleburs.
Something was wrong — my internal radar sensed a different kind of danger in this situation. He was terrified enough that he might do something desperate. What if he went scrambling over those timbers, trying to get away over the roof?
"How did you get here?" I asked him, keeping my voice soft. "Don't be scared. I don't want to get you into trouble. I just want to help you." I crouched down, trying to seem less threatening. "Are you okay?" I asked. "You look lost. You're probably hungry." Those apple cores and that old sardine tin were probably his doing.
I felt helpless, because I didn't have a mobile signal here in this little valley dip, probably one of the worst spots in Ceffylgwyn's spotty satellite reception. Relief surged through me when I heard boots on the stairs. The corner of my eye caught a fragment of orange — it was Kitty, coming back to find me.
"What are you doing up here?" she asked.
"Kitty, there's a little boy hiding in here," I said. "Don't try to go inside," I said, stopping her, as she moved closer. "He's scared." My eyes were sending a pleading signal that I hoped she would understand. "I think he's a runaway. He doesn't realize he can trust us yet."
I glanced at her, keeping my voice low. "Do you know him?" I whispered.
She shook her head.
We turned back to the little boy — he had lifted his face, listening intently to both of us, as if seeing another person made his fear worse. "It's okay," I repeated, quietly. "Listen. You can't go up those stairs, it's all blocked off. But you can come back down, and I promise you that everything will be okay. No one is going to hurt you. We'll find someplace warm and safe for you, where you can have something better to eat than old sardines in a tin. And we'll figure things out from there."
I inched forward, slowly, trying not to be noticeable. I was still afraid he might try to reach the attic. The only way I was going to keep him from bolting one direction or the other was to get him to come on his own.
I held out my hand. "Please," I said. "It will be all right. I promise." I kept it extended towards him. "Come on. Come down."
He stared at me with fright-filled eyes, his arms still locked around his knees. I didn't look away, but tried to get him to see that I wasn't going to hurt him. Trying to make him see that I meant that promise. What if it was my son who had run away and was hiding here on a cold October night?
He inched forward, slightly. I slid forward, too, to the foot of the stairs. Reaching out, my fingers touched his, gently. I moved my hand back and turned it again, palm up, inviting him to take hold of it. Please, I thought. Please, just take my hand. I looked into those eyes, which were an unusual shade of medium greenish-gray, and tried to see past the fear in them.
One grimy hand pried itself away from his knees and reached out, touching mine. I held onto it, but not too tightly. "Come on," I said, soothingly. "Everything will be fine." Gently, I pulled him out of that folded position and down the attic stair. Thin, all arms and legs, with clothes way too thin for this weather.
I took off my jacket and wrapped it around him to warm him up, picking him up in my arms. He wasn't any heavier than my daughter. "Let's call Charlie," I said to Kitty.
Chapter Sixteen
Outside, we met with the young couple from the pub, who ran on ahead of us after the shock of this discovery. By the time I reached the road with the boy in my arms, the search group was buzzing with the news of a boy hiding in the house.
The rest of the paranormal search party had reunited along the road's crumbling wall, where Vic was showing off footage of the hunt on his camera. Rosie and Charlotte hurried up, looking at the child.
"Who is he?" Rosie asked. "Who are you, love?" she asked the boy, who didn't answer, only squeezing his eyes shut.
"I've never seen him, that I can recall," said Charlotte. "If Lorrie were here, she'd know him."
"He's a runaway, I expect," said Rosie, tsking. "How on earth did he find his way here?"
It was in the middle of nowhere, that much was true, and seemed like the last place a kid would want to be — but maybe he had come here in the daytime, when the cottage seemed like a cool spot far from adults and homework.
"Poor little mite," tsked Rosie again. "He must have been out here and afraid for hours. How long have you been hiding in there, love?" she asked the little boy, stooping closer. "Did you hear all of us trampling about and it frightened you?"
"He's been in that house longer than today," said Charlotte. She, like me, was noticing the condition of his clothes. I thought of the bits of food lying on the floor of the cottage, near the fireplace. And the dead matches — they were for the candle stub.
If that was the light I saw in the wood — if that was the light everybody saw in this vale — had this boy been here all that time?
The boy I was holding was trembling hard, so I wrapped him up more warmly in my jacket. "Does anyone have a blanket or a shawl in the van that I could borrow?" I asked. "We couldn't find his coat or anything else."
"There's a blanket in my van," said Roddy. "The wife wraps herself up when it's windy on the boat. You can take it if you want."
I carried the boy to the van. The old blanket was lying in the back, smushed under someone else's backpack left behind during the search. I wrapped it around him, sinking down in the van's bucket seat. Roddy had left the keys in the ignition, so I started it and switched on the heater. The windows began to fog, covering up the sight of the searchers waiting for the police.
"Where are your mum and dad?" I asked the boy. "They must be worried about you." He stayed silent. I brushed his hair back, soothingly. It was coarse and wiry, and full of snarls and cockleburs also. He smelled like he hadn't bathed in months — or maybe that was the blanket, which had dog hairs clinging to it, probably from Roddy's big Saint Bernard.
I saw the blue lights flash as another car pulled up behind Charlotte's vehicle. A few minutes later, Vic was eagerly showing off the footage from his camera again, and Rosie was talking excitedly, gesturing towards the cottage behind the forest of hedges.
