At the bottom of the same pouch I find a cameo of my mam and I pause. I’ve not seen it before. I take it over to the candle and examine it. She’s young, only a little older than I am. It’s uncanny how alike we look; the same wide cheeks and pointed jaw, the same insolent quirk to the mouth. Aside from my dark hair and eyes, I could be her twin. I pocket the cameo, and the strange key, and think about what to do next.
There is a place I haven’t checked. But he wouldn’t dare…
Would he?
I walk back to the hall, candle in hand, and face the closed door to the parlour.
It’s been shut since that night. As far as I know my father hasn’t set foot in there since. Neither have I. It was always my mam’s special room, even before it became her cenotaph.
But it’s the only room I haven’t looked in. The only one he’d never expect me to enter.
Gritting my teeth and pushing my shoulders back, I open the door.
I know at once he hasn’t been in here. The shutters at the windows have been locked for a long, long time; the room smells stuffy and stale. Dust begins to dance as fresh air rushes in, glittering in the light from the candle. I take a deep breath and step inside.
I’d forgotten how pretty it was. Mam had decorated it to her taste; the walls with their fine, floral paper, the long, low twin sofas upholstered in yellow silk patterned with pink roses. The delicate tables with their long, spindly legs, the ornamental boxes inlaid with mother-of-pearl and tortoiseshell. Fine things she brought up here from her childhood home, after her parents died and her brother moved away. Before Giles began building his empire, my mother’s family were the richest in Ormscaula.
Crossing over a thickly piled rug, I open one of the boxes and find pine candies inside, old now. When I lift one it smells of nothing. The scent is gone for ever.
All the fight goes out of me and I put the candy back, closing the box.
Defeated, I close the door to my mother’s parlour and return to the study. I might as well tidy up. My eyes sting and I rub them viciously.
“I will not cry. I will not,” I mutter through clenched teeth as I cross towards the bookcase.
The next thing I know my ankle twists as a pen rolls beneath my foot, my arms windmilling for balance I can’t find. I scrabble to save myself, grabbing uselessly at the cushion on the window seat.
It comes away in my hand with a violent tearing sound, and I hit the floor hard, yelping as the impact jars my spine and my teeth snap together with a loud clack, rattling my skull. With my free hand I slap the floor, biting my lip to keep from screaming. Jesus Christ, it hurts.
When my ears finally stop ringing I slowly haul myself to my feet, rubbing the bottom of my back, and examine the window seat. There are strips of fabric stuck to the bare wooden top where it had been fixed on to it; I’ve ripped it clean off. My heart sinks as I realize I can’t reattach it.
It’s as I lower it back into place, vainly hoping my father won’t notice, that I see a small hole in the top of the seat, the exact size and shape of the odd key I’ve just found. My jaw drops as I understand what I’m seeing.
It’s not a seat, but a box, built into the recess under the window. With the cushion on, you’d never be able to tell.
I forget my pain and pull the key from my pocket. As I turn it, the lock releases, and the key becomes a handle. I lift the lid.
And I stare.
There are seven books hidden inside, bound in kidskin and nestled in the softest wool I’ve ever touched. I lift one out: it’s the same size as the Naomhfhuil logs on the shelves, but so old that when I open it the paper starts to disintegrate. I hastily replace it before it’s completely destroyed. The next two are just as fragile, and I leave them alone.
But the fourth seems sturdier, so I sit on the floor, crossing my legs and resting it gently on my lap. The cover is so soft, like chamois, or fine suede. Real fancy stuff. I open it and give the page a careful prod, relieved that it stays intact. So I begin, cautiously, to flick through it.
I can’t read it. The oldest books I’ve seen are written in Old Scots, and I needed help reading those – but they were nothing compared to the book I hold now. It’s all symbols, not even words, either it’s some kind of code, or a language more ancient than Old Scots. I scan a few paragraphs, but nothing makes sense.
And then I turn a page and I see it.
All the fear I felt last night comes back threefold as my fingers clutch at my nightshirt collar with remembered panic.
The artist was skilled, I’ll give them that. The ink has faded to rust, like old blood, but the images are still sharp, the details still true. It’s the thing I saw last night, here in this book, drawn over and over.
As I gaze at the pictures, unable to look away, I can see exactly why the one I saw seemed so wrong to me, out there on the path. So inhuman. Its limbs are too long, making the creature look spindly, almost frail. It doesn’t look as though it should be able to support its own weight, not an ounce of meat or fat on it. Cadaverous, is the word, I think. Or starved. Just sinew and hollow.
I keep looking. The next few are faces, etched with astonishing detail. In the pictures the creature’s eyes look bright and alert, not like the filmed-over eyes of the one I saw, and I wonder if maybe it’s an anomaly, or if it’s much older than those in the book. The ears are high on the head, a little pointed at the ends. The lips are the same, long and thin, the nose two depressions in the centre of its face. Its skin has been shaded – it looks like it would be coarse to the touch.
Not that I ever plan to find out.
I flip to the next page and shove the book off my lap, swearing freely.
Every hair on my body is on end, my breath caught somewhere between my mouth and lungs. I don’t want to look at it again, but I force myself, my hand trembling as I pull the book back on to my knees and find the page once more.
If it had opened its mouth last night, my heart would have burst. The picture has been drawn as though the creature was frozen, lunging at the viewer, and it’s petrifying.
Its maw is a gash that stretches across its entire face, two rows of teeth inside it. The back row contains masses of short, needle-thin teeth, all wickedly sharp, crowded together and crossing over each other in places as if they’ve grown in haste.
The front row contains just four teeth. Two pairs of canines, the same place mine are, except mine are maybe a quarter of the length. The creature’s are so long I don’t know how they fit inside its mouth when it’s closed.
How could anyone have ever thought these were gods? Demons, maybe, escaped from the pits of hell, but not gods. I can’t imagine how the artist saw it like this, and I don’t want to.
I’m lost in the image, staring at it, when something batters at the front door and I jump.
Scrambling to my feet, leaving the book on the floor, I cast around for a weapon, cursing my father for taking the guns and leaving me trapped in here like bait.
I think of the knives in the kitchen and run into the hallway, my pulse thundering in time with the thumping at the door.
“Alva?” a voice calls from the other side. It is sharp with fear, but I know it. “Alva? Are you there?”
“Ren? Ren? I’m here! I’m in here!” I press myself against the door, as if I could push through it.
“Alva!” he says again. “Are you all right?”