The Beggar's Curse

Ann Pilling

DEDICATION

For Benjamin and Thomas

CONTENTS

Cover

Title Page

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Afterword

Keep Reading

Also by the Author

Copyright

About the Publisher

The Ballad of Semmerwater

Deep asleep, deep asleep,

Deep asleep it lies,

The still lake of Semmerwater

Under the still skies.

And many a fathom, many a fathom,

Many a fathom below,

In a king’s tower and a queen’s bower

The fishes come and go.

Once there stood by Semmerwater

A mickle town and tall;

King’s tower and queen’s bower,

And the wakeman on the wall.

Came a beggar halt and sore:

“I faint for lack of bread.”

King’s tower and queen’s bower

Cast him forth unfed.

He knocked at the door of the eller’s cot,

The eller’s cot in the dale.

They gave him of their oatcake.

They gave him of their ale.

He has cursed aloud that city proud,

He has cursed it in its pride;

He has cursed it into Semmerwater

Down the brant hillside;

He has cursed it into Semmerwater,

There to bide.

King’s tower and queen’s bower,

And a mickle town and tall;

By glimmer of scale and gleam of fin,

Folks have seen them all.

King’s tower and queen’s bower,

And weed and reed in the gloom;

And a lost city in Semmerwater,

Deep asleep till Doom.

William Watson

CHAPTER ONE

Someone was hammering on the Blakemans’ front door. Prill ran to open it, and tripped over a half-filled suitcase in the middle of the hall carpet. Her best friend Angela Stringer stood outside in the pouring rain. Her bubbly black curls had turned into limp ringlets, her anorak steamed, and there was a dewdrop on the end of her nose.

“I’ve come for the address,” she announced, shaking herself all over the doormat, like a dog. “Can’t write if I’ve no address. And you’re off tomorrow, aren’t you?”

“Shut the front door!” Prill’s father bellowed from the top of the stairs. “It’s blowing a gale up here. Come on, Colin, give me a hand with this will you.” All that was visible of David Blakeman were two legs sticking out of the loft. Colin went up the stairs and grabbed one end of a battered trunk, and Prill steered Angela into the kitchen.

“Don’t tell me about the riding lessons,” she said, taking a pile of letters off the top of the fridge, “or I’ll be jealous.”

“Oh, I should think you’ll be able to ride up there, it sounds very rural.” Angela tried to sound encouraging. “Better than sticking to roads all the time – that’s what I’ll be doing. That’s the trouble with a place like this, it’s not the real country.”

But Prill was determined to be miserable. The one compensation for having to spend the entire Easter holiday at home, being looked after by their grandmother, was the promise of a few riding lessons with her friend. Now it was all off, and Angela was going with someone else, because Prill had to go to Cheshire with her brother Colin, and their ten-year-old cousin, Oliver Wright.

It was all a big mistake, and Prill blamed her father. He was an art teacher who really wanted to earn his living painting portraits, and when he got a chance to spend his Easter holiday doing a retired judge, up in Scotland, it sounded too good to be true.

It was. There’d been a misunderstanding somewhere. The children liked the sound of the pine forest and the moors; there was even a river with salmon in it. But Judge Cameron’s last letter had ended with a firm “P.S.”: “By all means bring your small toddler, but we regret that we cannot accommodate the older children, or dogs, as we have dogs of our own.”

Dad’s second plan had been to ask Grandma Blakeman over to “live in” for three weeks. But that fell through too. At the last minute she phoned to say she couldn’t come because the old friend she lived with had broken her hip and gone into hospital. Mr Blakeman was stuck. He couldn’t persuade Grandma to leave her little house locked up, she was too worried about burglars and burst water pipes, and besides, there were two cats to feed, not to mention all the hospital visits. But he didn’t want to give the portrait up, and he couldn’t really afford to.

Then Oliver’s parents came to the rescue. Grandma spoke to Aunt Phyllis and Aunt Phyllis spoke to Uncle Stanley. Why didn’t Colin and Prill go to Cheshire for the holidays, with Oliver? He was going to stay with a relative called Molly Bover, who took paying guests and would be delighted to have all three of them. And it would be so nice for Oliver.

“Here’s Uncle Stanley’s letter,” Prill said glumly. “And here’s the address. Use the back of the envelope.”

Angela nibbled her pencil and copied carefully, “Miss Priscilla Blakeman, c/o Mrs Bover, Elphins, Stang, near Ranswick, Cheshire.” Colin had come into the kitchen and was reading the address over her shoulder.

“I wonder who ‘Elphin’ was?” he said.

“A saint.” (Well, Angela’s father was a vicar.)

“Really? It sounds more like a goblin to me. And Stang Ugh, nothing very saintly about that. It’s a horrible name.”

“It isn’t in the guidebooks,” said Prill. “Dad looked. So it can’t be very interesting. It looks quite pretty though, on these.”

They spread Uncle Stanley’s postcards out on the kitchen table. They were brown and faded, and had a faintly musty smell, like everything he sent them. Oliver lived in a shabby London terrace overlooking the Thames, in a small flat on top of a tall, thin house occupied by elderly people in bedsitters. Aunt Phyllis, his mother, was the housekeeper. She cooked their meals, made them take their pills, and ruled them all with a rod of iron, including Oliver.

“It’s very pretty,” Angela murmured. “It’s got a duck pond with real ducks. And look at those nice old cottages. . . and those are stocks, aren’t they? It’s quite oldey worldey. What are you moaning for? I wish I was having the last week of term off, to go on holiday.”

But Colin had turned one of the postcards over, to examine the back. Suddenly he gave a loud snort. “Stang Village,” he read, “1938. These pictures are nearly fifty years old. Isn’t that typical! Oliver’s father’s really stingy you know, he’s probably been hanging on to these for years, ‘just in case’. Honestly.”

“Those ducks have probably died of pollution by now,” Prill said gloomily. “There’ll be a motorway running through the middle, I expect, and they’ll have a petrol station, and a great big supermarket.”

Angela laughed loudly. It was such a hearty cackle that even Prill smiled. Then she caught sight of the ironing board and pulled a face. “Oh heck, I promised Mum I’d have a go at that lot while she was out. She’s got to pack up the minute she gets back, and just look at it.”

“It’s not too bad. You can just skim through it all, cut a few corners. . .”

“Angela,” Prill shrieked, “we’re leaving home at eight tomorrow morning, and the ironing in that basket goes back to the ice age.”

Euston Station was like Oxford Street on Christmas Eve, and the train was even worse. Half the people in London seemed to be trying to get on, shoving and pushing and wandering grumpily up and down, looking for seats. And to cap it all, The Blakemans were late. The train was so full the guard agreed to let them put their dog in his van. She was a large Irish setter, lovable but mad, and crowds excited her. They were still trying to settle her down with all the parcels and packages when the train left the platform, and she was barking furiously at whoever walked past.

“Quiet girl, quiet,” coaxed Colin. He felt sorry for the poor dog, squashed in between two bicycles with nothing to lie on and nothing to eat. “Molly Bover must be OK,” he said to Prill. “She said she liked dogs, when she wrote to Dad. Gorgeous walks round the village she said, too. It could be all right.”

Prill remembered the note, written on what looked like the back of a butcher’s bill, in the most beautiful, flowing handwriting. “Yes, she did sound nice. Not a bit like a relation of Oliver’s. Where is he by the way?”

“Up at the front. In a reserved seat. I bet Aunt Phyllis got him to Euston at about five o’clock this morning. We’d better go and find him, I suppose.”

They followed their parents down the train. Prill soon lost sight of her mother, but there was no danger of losing Alison, her little sister. She hated the jolting carriages, the noise, and the big sweaty faces thrust up against her as people squeezed past. She howled solidly till Mrs Blakeman found a spare seat and sank down into it with a sigh of relief.

“I’ll take the kids up to Oliver,” Mr Blakeman said. “There might be a couple of spaces, you never know.”

Alison bawled louder as Prill disappeared, and the sight of that crumpled little face made Prill want to bawl too. Her mother had told her to look on the bright side about this holiday. Alison had been a good baby but she was going downhill fast, and now she could walk nothing and nobody was safe. She broke things, pulled things apart, and yelled for hours when she couldn’t get her own way. Grandma said she was getting herself ready for the Terrible Twos.

But Prill loved Alison. She was twelve and her sister was one, but they were friends. She’d much rather put up with a bit of howling and mess than be dumped in some lonely village all on their own for three weeks. Colin was OK, but Oliver. . .

There he was, installed in his corner seat, with his neatly labelled suitcase in the rack over his head, a small packet of sandwiches on his knees, and his nose deep in a book. “Hi, Oll,” Colin said cheerfully.

“Oh, hello. You made it then. Good job I kept these.” Across the aisle were two empty seats, one occupied by a yellow bobble hat, the other by an anorak.

“Thanks, Oliver,” Mr Blakeman said. “That was clever of you.”

“It wasn’t my idea,” the boy said coolly. “My mother did it. She knew you’d be late.”

“Well, you saved our bacon anyway. I had visions of us all standing up for three and a half hours. Now I’m going back to your mother,” Mr Blakeman told Colin and Prill. “I’ll pop back, but you know we get off at Crewe, don’t you?”

“Of course I do,” Oliver said quite irritably. “That’s where Molly’s picking us up.” And he pointedly turned the page of his book.

Mr Blakeman vanished. The brother and sister exchanged looks, then they both glanced across at Oliver. “He’s not improved much, has he?” Prill whispered. “He looks as weedy as ever. And why does he always dress up for an antarctic expedition? It’s not that cold.”

They hadn’t seen Oliver since last summer, but he was much the same; a bit taller perhaps, but still pale and droopy-looking and thin to the point of boniness. The glasses were new. Behind them his pale bulgy eyes gobbled up the print. They were large eyes, a curious washed-blue colour, with the hardest, coldest stare they had ever seen in anybody. “What are you reading, Oliver?” Colin said.

There was no answer. He simply held the book up so they could see the title. Cheese and Churches – Rural Traditions in Cheshire.

“Any good?”

“I don’t know yet. I’ve only just started. It’s my father’s.”

Uncle Stanley was a schoolteacher like Mr Blakeman, but the kind that specialised in being boring. Oliver’s school had long holidays, a whole month at Easter which his father usually filled with special projects. It was his own fault that his son was such a swot.

Cheese and Churches was obviously much more interesting than talking to the Blakemans, and Oliver clearly planned to read for the whole journey. To a normal person Colin might have said something like “Don’t speak, will you,” or “I’m used to being ignored.” But this was Oliver. He could be friendly when it suited him, even fun, now and again, but most of the time he was a loner.

It took a long time to get to Crewe. At every halt the train lost more and more time, and Dad’s idea of a fond farewell before they all split up faded gradually into nothing. The connecting train to Scotland would not be kept back, and the guard reckoned it was “a fair old walk” to the next platform.

So goodbyes were said hurriedly in the corridor as the train slowed down, and it was just as well. Prill was in a black depression about the whole thing, she wanted to go to Scotland with her parents, and Oliver seemed worse than ever. At least it had been their holiday, last summer, and he’d been a guest. But this Molly Bover was his father’s cousin, Oliver had been to Stang once before, and the Wrights had farmed in Cheshire for years and years. He’d be bound to make the most of it, parading his knowledge. He was such a little know-all.

Prill shut her ears to the last goodbye and turned her back on the final glimpse of her parents, rushing after a man with a trolley. After all the fuss of getting off, Crewe Station seemed strangely quiet and she stood alone, feeling like a little lost boat washed up on a sunless beach.

Then a voice said, “Oliver, hello dear. I was late, as usual. But I’m here now. And this must be Prill? And you’re Colin? I’m Molly Bover.” An irate railway official was coming towards them with Jessie on the end of a lead. He thrust it irritably into Colin’s hand. “Here, take it will you. I’ve had enough of this dog. It’s been a perishing nuisance. Noisy devil.”

Jessie was overjoyed to be free. She barked loudly and leaped up at the three children, wagging her tail and slobbering.

“Steady on,” said Molly Bover, taking a step back. She was a large lady but Jessie was almost knocking her over. “Gorgeous dog, but whose is it? And where’s that man gone? Surely someone’s looking for it?”

“It’s ours,” said Colin.

“Oh, but – yours dear? This?”

“Well, yes; she wasn’t allowed to go to Scotland, you see, and you said. . .”

Molly Bover’s round moon face clouded slightly. She said nothing for a minute, but took refuge in the three young faces. She liked children. The two Blakemans looked alike, freckled and gingery with curly reddish hair and dark brown eyes. Prill was pretty, a good subject for a portrait. But Molly didn’t paint these days, she had to concentrate on making her pots, to bring a bit of money in. Next to his cousins poor Oliver looked a real shrimp. Colin was a head taller, broad-shouldered and powerful-looking. Oliver was pale-faced and spindly.

Molly thought he spent far too much on his own, shut away in that damp little flat with his mother always pumping pills into him. A week or so in the country would do him a power of good. . . Her reverie was shattered by a shaggy wet face being thrust under her nose, and by more mad barking. “Jessie, of course, yes, I do remember now. Only there are the poodles. . . Oh well, let’s sort that out when we get home. Come on.”

They followed her out of the station towards an old blue estate car, Oliver carrying his tidy little case, Prill hanging on to the dog, Colin gloomily lugging a trolley with their old trunk on it. He had that sinking feeling. Molly Bover had obviously forgotten about Jessie and the dog wasn’t used to other animals. She’d eat Poodle One for dinner and Poodle Two for tea. It wasn’t a very promising start.

CHAPTER TWO

The minute the car door was opened all hell broke loose. Two toy poodles in the back hurled themselves against the battered dog guard in their effort to get at Jessie. She barked back, leaped on the nearest seat, and pushed her long nose through the bars.

“Jessie!” Colin yelled, yanking her outside. He could see the guard collapsing and the whole thing ending in a bloody free-for-all.

“Get in, get in, will you,” Molly said, vaguely alarmed. “I’ll put the cases in the back. Can she sit with you, do you think? It might be easier.”

Oliver settled himself by a window and the others clambered in after him. Jessie scrambled up on to the three pairs of knees and squirmed round trying to get herself comfortable. She liked being with people.

Oliver was almost suffocated. It had taken him all last summer to get used to this dog, and she’d obviously gone backwards in the last six months. The Blakemans just didn’t discipline her. And he didn’t like having the tail end either. He gave Jessie a sly shove and she moved over slightly, making herself into a miserable russet heap on Prill’s lap.

Colin thought Molly Bover was a bit odd-looking. Dad had told them she was over seventy, but in spite of the thick white hair straggling out of its untidy bun, she had a young face. She wore a dusty black cape with a hood lined in bright red. The hem was falling down and pinned up with a few safety pins. The artistic effect was further ruined by some mud-spattered wellington boots.

Uncle Stanley had warned them to expect bad weather up here, he’d advised rubber shoes, hats, gloves and hot water bottles. Oliver, who always wore three times as many clothes as anyone else, was obviously well-prepared.

The two black poodles were called Potty and Dotty and they yapped solidly all the way home. Colin and Prill grinned when they heard the names. It was hard to picture this sensible, no-nonsense Molly Bover yelling “Potty! Dotty!” down the village street. It was a long drive from Crewe across the flat Cheshire plain. The road threaded its way across a patchwork of small fields and went through villages of rather dreary houses. Now and then they saw a thatched cottage painted white, criss-crossed with old black timbers.

“Magpie architecture,” Oliver said importantly. “It’s in my book. They built the houses like that to make them more stable. The ground’s not always too firm, round here.”

Prill scowled at Colin. He was off. Why, oh why, did Grandma’s friend have to be in hospital now, just when the holidays started? She’d forgotten how irritating Oliver could be.

They kept seeing signs to Stang but there was no sign of a village. The car rattled down narrower and narrower lanes, then dived under a bridge. “There’s a canal above our heads,” Molly explained, slowing down so they could see properly. “It leaks a bit. When I was a child I used to stand here and imagine the whole thing collapsing. Anyway, we’d better get on. Not much further now.”

“But where is Stang?” said Prill. They’d emerged from the dripping bridge on to a perfectly flat piece of road. “It’s miles away, surely?”

“Wrong,” Molly answered mysteriously. “We’re nearly there. It’s in a valley, you see. You can never see Stang till you’re right on top of it. I expect your dad’s told you the old rhyme, Oliver?

‘The last man into Stang at night

Pulls down the lid and makes all hatches tight.’

He was always quoting that.”

Prill felt cold. It would be warmer down in the village, nicely tucked away in its little hollow. She was quite relieved that Stang wasn’t up on this plain where the wind could get at it, or near that gloomy canal. She stared through the window as Molly slowed down to let a tractor go by. Spring had hardly started here yet, though it was a very late Easter. The trees were only the faintest green. It was as if they were waiting for a warm spell, before hanging their flags out. For April the countryside was unusually quiet and still. Spring was well advanced at home, with trees in full blossom and birds busy everywhere. Round here, everything seemed to be still waiting.

Molly had switched her car engine off. A three-sided argument had developed between the tractor driver, a builder’s lorry, and a loud-mouthed youth on a red motorbike. “Sorry, folks,” she said cheerfully, opening her window. “A bit of local colour for you. That’s Tony Edge, our local Romeo.”

“A great big scrape,” the boy was bawling at the lorry driver. “Have to be resprayed that will.” Then they heard, “Come off it, mate, you did it on purpose. I know your sort.”

“Oh, he is ridiculous,” Molly muttered through her teeth. “As if the poor man meant to do it. Come on, Tony,” she shouted. “Move, will you. I’ve not got all day.” And she gave a sharp blast on the horn. At the sudden noise the young man jerked up his helmeted head and stared at the rusty old car ferociously. Colin was peering out of a side window, and their eyes met.

There was something rather awful about Tony Edge’s face, though he was certainly handsome, tanned, with bold, even features, large eyes, and a good strong nose, and he’d recently grown a splendid moustache. No wonder all the village girls wanted to go out with him.

But it was his eyes.

Colin tried to outstare them, but he couldn’t. Something in that face forced him to drop his gaze and he peered down into his own hands, feeling vaguely foolish, not really understanding what was going on. He was shivering slightly, and his flesh tingled as if he’d just had a small electric shock. That awful stare had made their cousin’s cool, calculating look seem quite ordinary.

He glanced at Oliver but all he could see was a narrow back. His cousin got dreadful car sickness. Perhaps he was taking this opportunity to vomit out of the window. Poor Oll.

But Oliver was doing no such thing. He wasn’t interested in a slanging match between a village lout and a man in a lorry. He’d seen something much more interesting, and he wanted to take a photo of it.

Oliver was often very secretive; he slid a small camera out of his pocket, pressed the “telephoto” button, and put it to his eye. His ignorant cousins would say it was only a sparrow, but Oliver thought that the small bird hopping in and out of the tangled hedge might be something much rarer. He breathed in, and clicked. It was the last film on the cartridge so he could get it developed quickly and sent off to his father. Just because they lived in London it didn’t mean he wasn’t interested in wildlife. He knew a lot more about birds than the Blakemans, anyway.

Molly rammed her foot on the accelerator and they bumped noisily down the hill into Stang. The valley was quite large. Church, green, and duck pond formed the village centre but the road went on going down for some while, then turned up sharply, petering out in an old footpath called Coffin Lane. “There was a tax on salt in the old days,” Molly explained, “and they’re supposed to have smuggled it out of Stang in coffins along this track. Hence the name. I bet there were a lot of funerals!” At its lowest point the track bordered the edge of a deep pool called Blake’s Pit. This was the real heart of the village, she said, and several families still lived there, including the Edges, in houses above the water that clung for dear life to the steep valley sides.

“It’s a grim old spot,” she muttered, turning in at a gateway. “Walk down later and have a look. Can’t say I’d fancy living there myself though. I like it up here, where the life is. Welcome to Elphins anyway, dears. Can you sort yourselves out? I’ll just go and find Rose, and I’ll bung the poodles in the shed for a bit, so you can bring your dog in.”

“It’s the best house in the village,” Oliver said firmly. “My father said so.”

“Elphins” was a rambling old place, black and white with a mouldy thatched roof in such bad repair it looked as if giant moths had eaten great holes in it. It was set well back from the road, in a tangled wilderness that must once have been a garden. Prill and Colin looked at it in dismay.

“It obviously needs money spending on it,” Oliver said defensively, “But Molly’s not got any. That’s why she does bed and breakfast. Anyway, I like it.” And he lifted his suitcase out of the car and went up the path. The other two weren’t at all sure. Silently they manoeuvred their trunk out of the back and dumped it on the gravel. “You take that end,” said Colin. “It’s not too heavy.” But as they struggled with it he suddenly felt eyes on his back, and, glancing over his shoulder, he saw the face of Tony Edge staring across the road. The same strange feeling began to creep over him again, making him shiver.

“Hang on,” he lied to Prill. “I’ve not got hold of it properly. Let’s put it down for a minute,” and he turned right round and gave the face a good stare. But it wasn’t Tony at all; this boy was younger, about thirteen, much squatter and more thickset, wearing an old donkey jacket and a dirty baseball cap. But the face was the same, and the same hard, dark eyes were boring into him, making his hands sweat. It was uncanny.

“Look, have you got it?” Prill snapped. “Because I’m cold. . . Well, come on then.”

All the time they were at the car the boy lolled against his fence, watching the proceedings with intense interest. Then the church clock struck six and he stood upright, straightened his cap, and stared up the road. But someone was coming towards them; he suddenly put his hands back in his pockets and slouched against the fence, watching.

They saw the little figure creeping along, a small brown person enveloped in a dingy raincoat and carrying shopping. One hand held a plastic carrier with celery sticking out of the top, the other clutched the handles of an old-fashioned carpet bag.

“Hello, Rose,” the boy called out. She stopped and looked up. Her hair was tucked out of sight inside a brown knitted pixie-hood that buttoned under her chin, and they saw a small oval face, smooth and freckled like an egg. It was hard to work out how old she was; she might have been twenty, thirty, or anything in between. “Want me to carry your bags then?” the boy hollered, and stepped forward.

“No. . . no. . .” Rose stammered. The sad little face didn’t look anxious any more, it looked terrified. She started to run, but just outside Elphins the road was still cobbled and the ancient stones were loose and dangerous. Rose tripped and fell flat on her face. She clung grimly on to the carpet bag but the carrier landed on the cobbles. “Me eggs,” she whimpered. “All me eggs. Fresh today an’ all.”

As the sticky yellow mess oozed out on to the road she started to cry. The boy by the fence laughed loudly. “That’s typical of you, Rose Salt,” he sneered. “You can’t even carry a bit of shopping home. Cheshire born and Cheshire bred, Strong in th’arm and weak in th’ead. That’s you.” And he set off, up the street. Rose, still spreadeagled on the stones, sobbed harder than ever.

The two children were so taken aback they just stood by the car, goggling, but Rose’s wails had brought Molly out of the house. “It doesn’t matter at all, dear,” she said gently, helping Rose to her feet. “It wasn’t your fault. Come on in now, our visitors have arrived. And I saw you’d got tea ready, now that was clever of you, dear.” Then she called up the street in a very different voice. “As for you, Sid Edge, you’re Cheshire born too you know, just in case you’d forgotten. Thick as a brick, like all the Edge family,” she whispered to the two children, steering the sniffling Rose up the garden path.

“Who is Rose Salt?” Colin asked Oliver, when they were getting ready for bed.

“I don’t know. My father never mentioned her. I didn’t know she lived with Molly.”

“I think she’s a bit weird.” Colin was jumping up and down as he pulled his pyjamas on. “This place is freezing. Do you think Molly would mind if I filled my hot-water bottle?”

“Why should she?” Oliver was putting a pair of thick red socks on, to wear in bed. “She’s not the touchy type, you know.”

“No, she’s nice. But what about Rose, Oll? She gives me the creeps. And why does she wear that funny hat all the time? Do you. . . do you think she’s bald?”

The two boys collapsed into giggles, then Oliver pulled himself together sharply. His mother wouldn’t approve of that kind of joke, she was rather religious. “I don’t know. She’s definitely a bit odd. Perhaps she’s the village idiot,” he said slowly.

“Oliver, what a thing to say.”

“Well you said she was creepy,” he said huffily, tucking a scarf round his neck and climbing into bed.

Prill couldn’t get to sleep because of the cold. If this house didn’t warm up soon she’d spend the whole holiday in the kitchen. It had an open fire, and she quite fancied sleeping down there tonight, with Jessie. Colin’s stuff had been in the top half of the trunk. He’d unpacked, then dragged it along the creaking corridor to her room. There was something in the bottom that she hadn’t wanted anyone to see, and she was clutching it now, an old French doll called Amy.

Amy was the most precious thing Prill had. Her grandmother had given it to her on her tenth birthday. It was an heirloom, brought back from World War One by Grandad Blakeman’s father. Prill was too old for teddies and stuffed toys, and this doll usually sat on the shelf at home, above her bed. There was nothing cuddly about Amy, with her disapproving porcelain face, her frilled dress and her real leather shoes.

But she smelt of home, and Prill needed something to remind her of Mum, Dad and Alison. She’d only once been separated from them all before, and it was only for a day or so. She knew she wasn’t going to enjoy this holiday very much, and she didn’t like this cold, dark house either.

Much later, when someone crept into her room, Prill was still awake, though Stang church clock had already struck midnight. When she heard the door open she half closed her eyes and took deep, regular breaths, though her heart was thumping, and she peeped at the figure hovering near the bed.

It was Rose Salt, still in her pixie-hood, but now wearing a long yellow nightie. She stretched out a little brown hand and touched the doll’s blue frills, then ran a finger over the painted face. A tiny sound escaped from her lips. “Ah. . . Ah. . .” she was sighing, tenderly. But at that moment Prill turned over quite violently in the bed, closed her eyes properly, and clutched the little French doll much tighter.

CHAPTER THREE

Molly Bover was a great leaver of messages. Colin came down first next morning and found the kitchen table covered with little notes. One: She’d gone off at seven, with the poodles, and taken a carload of pots to a craft fair near Chester. Two: She would drop Oliver’s film into Kwik Flicks, a new rapid-developing place in Ranswick. Three: Breakfast was on the stove. Four: Her old friend Winnie Webster was expecting them for lunch at twelve-thirty sharp. Her bungalow was easy to find, they just had to follow their noses to Blake’s Pit. “DON’T BE LATE!” she’d added in curly capitals, decorating the exclamation mark with a skull and crossbones.

There were no notes for Rose Salt. Perhaps Oliver was right, perhaps she was a bit weak in the head. She probably couldn’t read. Colin looked all round, but there was no sign of her. The long brown mack had gone from its hook on the back of the door, and the carpet bag had vanished too.

He helped himself to porridge and buttered a pile of toast. If Rose had made the nutty brown bread she could certainly cook. Colin ate so much it was quite an effort to get up from the table. Then he remembered Jessie. Molly had put her in the shed in exchange for the poodles – quite a comedown, after queening it all night by the kitchen fire. She was overjoyed to see him and made a lot of noise. He clipped her lead on and they set off along the village street towards the church. Prill thought his fascination for graveyards was morbid, but Colin quite fancied being an archaeologist, and if you wanted to work out the history of a place you should begin with its church, according to Dad.

Every cottage seemed to have two or three cats and Jessie barked systematically at every single one. As he walked past the village shop a man flung open an upstairs window and bellowed, “Keep that dog quiet, will you!” The shop front was very shabby, and all the blinds were down. “Edge Brothers, General Provision Merchant, High Class Butchers and Poulterers” was written across them in white. It looked anything but “high class”. It was nearly nine o’clock but there were no signs of life at all, and it wasn’t Sunday.

The man at the window was still in his pyjamas. His eyes followed Colin along the street and watched him turn up into the lane that led to the church. The boy’s neck prickled. One quick, backward glance had revealed the Edge face again. It was as if some demon farmer had gone round Stang with a giant butter pat, stamping his mark. It was the same look, the same stare, the same eyes. Awful.

When he saw the church he did another double take. On top of a square, chubby tower there was an elegant steeple, but it was definitely crooked; in fact it was toppling to one side quite alarmingly, like the leaning tower of Pisa. The church was obviously under repair. There was a concrete mixer by the door, a litter of scaffolder’s poles, and some piles of newly cut sandstone blocks, all marked with numbers. A man in overalls climbed down a ladder to talk to him.

“Looks dreadful, doesn’t it?” he said with a grin. “Don’t worry, son, it won’t fall over.”

“Are you underpinning?” Colin asked, rather pleased with himself for knowing the right word.

“Oh no, now that really would mean rebuilding, digging into the foundations, and all that lark. No, the spire’s safe enough. They watch it, you know. Lots of buildings lean a bit, in Cheshire. It’s the old salt workings.”

“Yes, I know.” Cleverclogs Oliver had told them that.

“We’re just renewing some of the stonework on the tower. Some old woman died recently and left this place all her money. Good for trade, of course.” He started to go back up the ladder. “You could come up and have a look tomorrow, when the boss isn’t around,” he added in a whisper, pointing a finger heavenwards to a pair of legs.

“I might. . . Thanks,” Colin said. But as he watched the man crawling spider-like up the underside of the toppling spire he felt quite sick and closed his eyes. It was such a delicate steeple and it leaned so horribly. He could see the weight of the cheerful builder dragging the whole thing down. . .

For a while he wandered round the churchyard, looking at the graves. Everything was very overgrown; daffodils had speared up through the grass but they were still tightly closed, and the trees remained a sullen brown. How cold and damp it all was. He had no gloves, scarf, or hat. Just for once he quite envied Oliver all those winter woollies.

The graveyard was dominated by three names: Edge, Wright and Bover. Others had come and gone, but these families had obviously been around for centuries. There were dozens of Wrights, and about twenty Bovers, but the Edges outnumbered everyone else. It was as if they had a stranglehold on the village.

Colin noticed that several people in Stang had lived rather short lives. One stone marked the death of James Weaver in 1803 “Whom Neptune Deprived of Life”. He was only seventeen. There was an Isaac Bostock and his son Samuel who had both died “pitifully”, in a drowning accident. Where? Could it have been Blake’s Pit? But there was nothing to say. Most pathetic of all was the grave of the three Massey children, “tragically lost” on the night of April 21st 1853. How and why they were “lost” the crumbling headstone did not reveal.

The Edge clan, on the other hand, had obviously enjoyed rude health. They’d had large families and most of them had lived into ripe old age. This dank, cold village in the valley bottom obviously suited them perfectly.

At ten o’clock Oliver was walking towards Blake’s Pit with a Thermos flask under his arm. Molly had left it out for Rose to take to a sick old lady in the village. “Now I’ll leave it ready on the kitchen table,” she’d said last night. “Rose? Are you listening, dear? Don’t forget it, will you? Miss Brierley likes her drop of soup. Now don’t forget it, Rose.” But she had, and Oliver had found the red flask still on the table. He didn’t mind taking it to Miss Brierley’s cottage, he was quite used to old people, and they didn’t bother him in the way they seemed to bother his cousin Prill. She’d pulled a face when Molly suggested they might drop in on this old lady, now and again.

Her tiny cottage was called Blake’s End. It was easy to find because it was the very last house in the village. The only other place anywhere near it was an untidy farmhouse, with an ancient caravan in a field at the front. This was Pit Farm where Tony and Sid Edge lived with their parents and their sister Violet.

The caravan was apparently let to a family of cousins. It was moored at the edge of a great sea of rusting machinery, old radiators, car tyres, and lumps of old iron. Oliver walked past slowly, to get a good look. In a place like Stang there might be some old farming tools. There might even be a man trap. . .

As he lurked in the lane the caravan door opened and three small children sidled out to inspect him. They were pale-faced and doughy-looking, overweight and squat, a bit like puddings. They stared at Oliver, all in a row, like a set of small toby jugs.

But he wasn’t going to be put off by three little kids. In the long grass he could see something quite promising, a cruel-looking cutting instrument with spikes. He bent down to look at it but the Puddings never took their gaze off him. They followed every move he made with their hard little eyes. Then one of them yelled, “Mam! Mam!” and a face popped out from the doorway. “Keep your hands off that!” the woman shrieked. “This is private property. So clear off!”

Oliver grabbed his Thermos flask and fled, hardly daring to look up at the cheerless farmhouse where the Edges lived, and he didn’t stop running till he was outside Miss Brierley’s door, at Blake’s End.

Nobody answered his knock, so he just walked in. The old lady’s bed was in a corner under the window. She lay propped up on pillows but her eyes were shut, and her breathing was irregular and noisy. Rose Salt sat on a chair by the bed, reading slowly and carefully from a copy of The Times.

Oliver felt rather ashamed. She could read then, and with some expression and feeling. “Rose,” he whispered. “I’ve brought the soup from Molly. You left it behind.” Her sad brown eyes slid from the newsprint to the red flask, then to his face. She said nothing, only shook her head slightly, and went on reading. The Times was obviously Miss Brierley’s bedtime story. She was dozing off quite nicely now, and Rose was pleased.

Oliver walked slowly down the hill again, towards Blake’s Pit. The old woman was dying, he’d realised that the minute he entered the house. It wasn’t the smell, or the harsh breathing, or the papery chalk-white cheeks, or the lifeless hair. It was something in the air. Death waiting.

It didn’t worry him. Several of his mother’s old people had been carted off to hospital and never brought back. In time, others, equally old, had replaced them. That was life. But a death like this would upset Prill. She was a touchy, nervous kind of person, with too much imagination for her own good. Oliver hoped the old woman would hang on for a bit longer, at least till they all went home.

Her cottage was in a prime spot, with a perfect view of Blake’s Pit down below. Oliver hadn’t realised it was quite so big, and he’d forgotten how round it was. The still waters looked very broody and dark today; there was no sun, and rain was threatening. Black Pit was its original name, according to his father, and the locals said it was bottomless.

He shivered slightly, turned up his collar and headed for Elphins. He didn’t see the three twisted little faces peering at him through the dirty caravan window, or Sid and Violet Edge spying down on him from their upstairs landing, cracking jokes about his skinny little legs.

Prill had got up very late and spent the morning writing a letter to Angela Stringer. On their way up to Winnie Webster’s bungalow she dropped it in the letter box outside the Edges’ shop.

“Dear Angela,” she’d written. “We’re here, and guess what? I’ve won second prize in a competition. First prize – two weeks’ holiday in Stang, Second prize – three weeks’ holiday in Stang. Ha Ha, funny joke. Do you get the message? It’s awful. We’re all freezing to death in this house. Molly Bover’s quite nice, arty, but definitely rather vague, and forgets half you say. Someone lives in called Rose Salt. She cooks and cleans up, and looks a real weirdo. I should think she’s got no parents – Molly’s the sort of person who seems to like helping ‘lame dogs’.

And while I’m on the subject, she’s got these two horrible poodles called Potty and Dotty. Last Christmas someone left them behind, in an empty house, and Molly saved them from the vet’s needle! They obviously get on her nerves, but she felt sorry for them. ‘One of life’s nice people’, as your dad would say.

Everyone round here is either old or peculiar, or both. There’s a vile family called Edge that seems to rule the village and has a finger in every pie. Nobody likes them, not even Molly. Their Tony (18) is the local heart-throb. Honestly, you should just see him.

I am going riding by the way, Molly’s said she can fix it up for me. There are some horses in the village, three in a field just outside my bedroom window. But guess what? On closer inspection the one I really fancied turned out to be an old carthorse!

Now don’t forget to write.

In deepest gloom, Prill.”

It really was a masterpiece of spite, and Prill put it in the letter box feeling rather uncomfortable. She hoped the Reverend Stringer wouldn’t read it too. If he did, he’d probably drop straight on to his knees and start praying for her soul.

CHAPTER FOUR

Winnie Webster must have been lying in wait for them behind her front door, because the minute they knocked it opened quickly and they were ushered inside. She talked non-stop as she drew up chairs and made them sit down in a small, crowded room. Jessie, curiously cowed by the atmosphere, came in rather unwillingly and slumped at Prill’s feet. But the minute she wagged her tail all the ornaments on the mantelpiece rattled.

“Oh dear,” Miss Webster said doubtfully. “I didn’t know you had a dog. I’m a cat person myself. Do you think—”

“I’ll take her outside,” Colin said abruptly, getting up. Nobody wanted Jessie in Stang; even Molly had forgotten she was coming. He felt rather depressed as he knotted her lead round the bars of the garden gate, and the odd cooking smells that issued from Winnie’s kitchen didn’t do much to cheer him up. Molly had warned them that she was rather keen on health foods, and it was hours since breakfast.

She gave them all a pre-lunch drink, with hard seeds at the bottom and what looked like dead leaves floating about on top. “Cinnamon,” she explained crisply, watching Prill trying to fish her bits out. “Nothing added. All freshly squeezed. Drink up now, lunch in twenty minutes.”

The three children swallowed the strange brew obediently. Winnie Webster was like that; very small, but with a hard steel core, bustling and energetic – a little human dynamo. She was also a mad keen gardener. Outside the window a plump young man in jeans was scratching his head over an obstinate lawn mower. “That’s Porky Bover,” she explained. “No, no relation to Molly, except way back. He’s my right hand in this great garden. A marvellous worker. Now then, let’s have a chat.”

But all they did was listen. Oliver had Winnie Webster taped in about two minutes. Women like her were always coming to see his mother. She was a Committee Lady. She went on and on about church fétes, and Christmas bazaars, and children’s pantomimes. Her life blood was in all this, now she’d retired from school teaching. But what she most wanted to talk about was the play. “You do know about it, of course?” she said, pausing only to draw breath before rushing on.

“Sort of,” said Colin, though all Molly had told them was that some of the men and boys in the village put a play on at Easter time. It was very ancient, something to do with St George and a lot of other knights. There was a great deal of fighting in it, but everyone made friends at the end. The dead men came back to life, and they all danced round together.

“King George actually,” corrected Winnie. “But yes, he’s a saint, of course. My dears, you wouldn’t believe the trouble I have every year with Stang Mummers.”

“Mummers?” Prill repeated. “Aren’t there any words?”

“Oh yes, pretty crude and simple they are too, like nursery rhymes really. But people still have trouble learning their lines, and of course the Edges are quite hopeless.”

“But I thought mumming meant miming?” Oliver said cleverly.

“Oh it does, and you’d expect it to be performed in silence, I know. Pity it’s not; I wouldn’t have quite so many problems then.”

“So who’s in the play?”

“Just the three old village families, the Wrights, the Bovers and the Edges, worst luck, and only the men. Women can’t take part. Porky’s always in it, he does the women. Oh, he doesn’t mind, he’s one of the more sensible members of the cast. Pity the others don’t copy.”

“I’d quite like to read it,” Oliver said. His father hadn’t told him much about this, and it sounded interesting. “Have you got a copy of the words?”

Winnie Webster hesitated. “Ye-es,” she said slowly. “But I can’t let you borrow it, I’m afraid.”

“Why not?”

A dark pink flush was creeping slowly over her cheeks. She looked distinctly uncomfortable. “Well, it’s silly really, but there are a lot of funny customs connected with this play. It’s been done for so many years, you see. Certain families always take certain parts, and everything’s got to happen in exactly the same way. One of the things they insist on is that only the players have the words. They think it’s bad luck if an outsider sees them, or a woman.”

“But you’re a woman,” Oliver said rudely. He was now determined to get his hands on it.

She laughed. “True, but I’m the producer, dear. If I wasn’t around they’d end up fighting. Anything that involves the Edge family is always impossible to organize. They’re so difficult, I just can’t tell you. And this year we’ve got another problem, we’ve no King George.”

She took a framed photograph down from the mantelpiece. “Dear Noel,” she murmured. “This is my nephew, Noel Wright. He’s a very distant cousin of yours, Oliver. Noel usually plays George, and he’s a splendid actor. But this year his company decided to send him to America for six months. Well, of course he couldn’t turn that down, not even for Stang Mummers, so I’ve asked young Mr Massey to do it.”

They all looked dutifully at the photograph. “Dear Noel” was a chinless wonder, with piggy little eyes, a spotted bow tie, and sleek hair parted down the middle. George Massey, a TV producer, who’d recently moved into a brand-new house opposite Elphins, just had to be an improvement. He’d waved to the children that morning as they came out of Molly’s gate, a big man, with a bushy blond beard, and a red T-shirt that said “Ranswick Thespians”. He was a very keen amateur actor.

“It should be a Wright really,” Winnie explained. “That’s what they’re all grumbling about. But no one will allow me to swap the parts round, or anything. They say it will ‘break the luck’, or some nonsense. Codswallop. So I said, ‘Look, it’s George Massey or nothing’. And they took it, would you believe? His name’s George, fortunately, and that seemed to persuade them. Oh, they are dense. I did point out that the man’s paying for the new costumes this year, so they can’t afford to offend him. He’s dying to be in it, and he’s very good.”

Prill wasn’t at all sure she liked the sound of this play, with all this secrecy about the words, all this talk about “bad luck”, the fact that women couldn’t be in it, and all the squabbling. “It doesn’t sound very Christian to me,” she said suddenly.

“Oh well, it’s not dear, anything but. All the religious bits have been stuck on, over the years. It’s not really supposed to be done at Easter either, but you wouldn’t expect Stang people to get a thing like that right, would you? Yes, the whole thing’s pagan really, and when you think how they make the horse’s head. . .”

“Yes, tell us about that,” Oliver said excitedly. It was in his book.

Winnie Webster looked at the three young faces, and paused. It was a bit gruesome, but today’s children seemed to like grisly things. “Well,” she began. “In the play the horse is called Old Hob, and they carry it round on a pole. It’s very important, the one thing they always keep. All the other props and costumes are replaced every seven years. Very wasteful I call it, but there you are. The old things are burned on a bonfire – just an excuse for a knees-up, in my opinion. It’s tonight actually. Did Molly mention it?”

“No,” Colin said. It sounded rather interesting. Perhaps they could go.

“Anyway, everything’s burned except this horse’s head. It’s a real one, boiled down and skinned. They fix wires to its jawbone and someone hides under a cloth and goes round snapping at the audience. The children adore it. Now that really is pre-Christian,” she said, looking at the girl. “It goes right back to horse worship, that does.”

Prill was feeling quite sick. She had just refused to think about a crowd of drunken villagers boiling a poor horse’s head in a great pot. Horses were marvellous creatures, there was a great dignity and peace about them. She could quite understand why, in ancient times, men had bowed down and worshipped them like gods.

“In the old days villages used to steal each other’s heads, apparently,” Winnie said dryly. “It was like robbing them of their magic power, you see. Just the kind of thing the Edge family would adore, I’ve no doubt,” she added, with a queer little laugh. But Prill had gone green.

“Fresh air,” Winnie announced briskly, realizing she’d said too much. “I’ll just put the spinach on, then we’ll go round the garden for five minutes.”

Spinach. Prill felt even worse.

The real inspection of the garden was postponed till after lunch. The meal was such a strange mixture of flavours, and involved so much hard chewing, that they all felt relieved to be out of the stuffy dining room and walking about in the fresh air. Porky Bover was still having trouble with his lawn mower, and he kept stopping to adjust it. The steeply sloping lawns didn’t make the grass very easy to cut, and Oliver couldn’t understand why he was doing it anyway. The turf hadn’t started to grow again yet, it was obviously taking its time. But then, it was so cold in Stang.

“Can’t seem to get the hang of this new mower, Miss Webster,” the fat boy shouted good-naturedly, as she led an expedition up the hill to look at the view. “It keeps stopping.”

“Well, it was you who complained about the old one, dear,” she called rather heartlessly. “Thought this was our answer. All these bits of lawn. All these slopes. Now, would your mother like some bedding plants when they’re ready? I’ll have plenty of spares.”

“You’ve got a good view of the lake, Miss Webster,” Oliver said politely. “As good as Miss Brierley’s.”

“A wee bit better if anything,” she said proudly. “No trees in the way on my side. Some people find it a bit depressing – Molly, for example. Now she wouldn’t give tuppence for this view. I just can’t persuade her to live down here. She doesn’t really like Blake’s Pit.”

“Why not?” Prill asked.

“Oh, that’s Molly; she’s a bit of a Romantic, you know. There’s supposed to be quite a big town at the bottom of it. Well, a city really. Someone did something terribly wicked once, and someone else put a curse on them, and in the middle of the night a flood rose up from nowhere and drowned everybody.”

“What a fantastic story,” thought Prill.

“Of course, if dear Molly knew her geography and her geology,” Winnie went on, a little peevishly, “she’d know that it couldn’t possibly be true.” And she delivered a short lecture about earth-mass, glaciers, and rock formations. She was almost as boring as Uncle Stanley.

Tea was threatened, but they were saved from it by Violet Edge who came wandering up the garden with some books under her arm. “Our Vi,” Winnie muttered under her breath. “Heavens, it’s nearly four o’clock. I’m supposed to be giving her an English lesson. O Level. A lost cause of course, but there we are. Come on, Violet,” she shouted down the slope. “My visitors are just leaving. Uncanny resemblance isn’t there?” she whispered in Colin’s ear, noticing his eyes fixed on Our Vi.

There was. The flat pasty face was that of a fifteen-year-old girl, but she had that same hard look, sullen and suspicious, and those awful burning eyes.

Just as they were going through the front gate Winnie came running out with a book in her hand. She was feeling guilty about snubbing Oliver. He’d been so interested in the play, and you really should encourage bright children, not fob them off with talk of old superstitions.

“Oliver,” she said. “You might like to read this. It’s not the text of the play, but it is quoted quite a lot.”

He took the small blue book, and read the title: The Stang Mumming Play, Origins and History. It was by Winifred B. Webster B.A. (Hons), Manchester. “Thank you,” he beamed, rather impressed. “I’ll read it, and bring it straight back.”

“No, that’s all right. But do look after it, Oliver. In fact, I’m not quite sure really. . .” and she put her hand out, almost as if she was going to snatch it back again.

“Why shouldn’t I read it?” Oliver said, hardening.

Winnie Webster said nothing for a minute, then she became cheerful and brisk again. But there was something forced in her manner now. “Well, quite. Why shouldn’t you? All this superstitious nonsense, all this secrecy. It’s ridiculous. Keep it at Molly’s though, dear, don’t take it round the village.” Don’t let the Edges see you with it was what she really meant.

Our Vi didn’t hear the conversation because the bungalow windows were all shut, but she certainly saw the book change hands, and as she sat waiting for her lesson an unpleasant smile was spreading slowly across her flat face.

Oliver tucked the book under his arm and followed Jessie along the lane. He was very thoughtful. Miss Webster’s crisp, no-nonsense manner hadn’t been at all convincing. It was as if, deep down, she was frightened of something. What on earth was it?

CHAPTER FIVE

There had been no sign of a bonfire when they walked up to Winnie’s, but now the lanes were full of scurrying children lugging bits of dead tree up the hill, and rooting about in the hedges for branches and sticks. Rose Salt was there, helping some boys push an old pram full of rubbish. A loud argument was going on in the field next to George Massey’s new house; the Edges were building their fire there, and he said it was too close to his fence.

“You’ve got the whole field,” they heard. “Why build it here, for heaven’s sake?”

“Whole field’s no good,” Tony Edge said cheekily. “It’s all waterlogged, that’s what. This bit’s the only place we can build it. Any fool can see that.”

But George wouldn’t be shouted down, and, very grudgingly, they started to dismantle their fire. Sid turned up, with the Puddings in tow, and Our Vi appeared soon afterwards and helped to heave great branches about. The grumpy man who’d yelled at Colin from his bedroom window stood in the gateway and directed operations in a loud, harsh voice. This was Uncle Harold, brother of Uncle Frank. Together they ran the village stores, and they were also the stars of the play, according to Winnie.

“Seen enough?” Sid Edge bawled at Colin, who stood watching outside Molly’s. He turned, and walked up the garden path. The Edges weren’t doing anything constructive, they were just shifting their wood about six feet from the fence. That was no good. When darkness fell, and George Massey went indoors, he wouldn’t put it past them to creep out and move everything back to its original place. They were like that.

“How was Winnie?” Molly Bover asked them at tea. “Did she give you all a carrot juice cocktail?”

Colin and Prill exchanged embarrassed looks, but Oliver said, “Yes, it was awful. And the lunch was pretty awful, too. It tasted most peculiar.” He was totally unpredictable. In some moods he was maddeningly polite to grownups, at other times he said exactly what he thought. Aunt Phyllis wouldn’t approve, but Oliver was clearly enjoying a little taste of freedom.

Molly grinned. “Good old Winnie. I expect you’re all genned up now. I expect she gave you her lecture about Stang, and the play, and old Cheshire customs. Am I right?”

“Well, yes,” Oliver said slowly. “But I’m still not sure about Blake’s Pit.”

“What about it, dear?”

“She said it was supposed to have a town at the bottom, and that there was a curse on it. She said you knew all about it too, but that it was a load of old rubbish,” he ended tactlessly.

“Ah yes,” Molly said quietly. “Winnie rather likes that word. She just means an old poem, I think, one I’m rather fond of:

“He has cursed aloud that city proud,

He has cursed it in its pride;

He has cursed it into Semmerwater

Down the brant hillside;

He has cursed it into Semmerwater,

There to bide. . .”

Her voice was rich and deep, like a great river. What a pity women couldn’t be in this play, Prill thought. Molly would be marvellous.

Oliver had listened very carefully. “Semmerwater,” he said accusingly. “But what’s that got to do with it? It’s in Yorkshire. I’ve been. My father took me rowing on it.”

“Full marks, Oliver,” Molly said patiently, thinking that the persistent, pernickety Oliver was rather like a dentist’s drill. “But there are legends like that about lots of places, you know, with little variations. Didn’t your father tell you?”

“No. He’s not very keen on poetry.”

“Well, in the poem, a beggar is turned away from the gates of a great city, and he curses it. And the floods rise and drown everyone.”

“Yes, she told us that,” he said impatiently.

“And did she tell you that people have actually seen the city, shimmering through the water?”

“No, no she didn’t. I don’t think she likes poetry much either.”

“Ah well,” said Molly.

“King’s tower and queen’s bower,

And a mickle town and tall;

By glimmer of scale and gleam of fin

Folks have seen them all. . .”

The sheer music of it made Prill’s spine tingle. What a pity Molly Bover didn’t take them for poetry lessons. Their English teacher, old Mr Crockford, read things like that to them with all the feeling of an iron bar. “What about Stang, Molly?” she said.

“Well, nobody’s ever bothered to write a poem about Blake’s Pit, but it’s got the same kind of story attached to it, only in our version it was only the rich people who drowned. The beggar survived and prospered, and built another town by the lake. That’s one explanation of why Stang village is where it is. Old Stang’s under the water, and the oldest houses are just above it.”

“But I thought this house was the oldest in the village?” Oliver said.

“Oh no, dear, Pit Farm’s the oldest, and it’s the third house on that site, apparently. The Edges do go back a very long way, and I suppose when your name’s in the Doomsday Book you can afford to feel a bit superior.”

“They are awful though, Molly,” Colin said fiercely, thinking of Rose Salt weeping over her smashed eggs, and of Sid’s peals of laughter.

“Yes, they are. Sometimes, though, I get the feeling that wretched family just can’t help itself. They were born awkward, somehow.”

“Perhaps it was one of the Edges who cursed that palace into the pit,” Oliver said solemnly. “Perhaps they’re all descended from that old beggar.”

“They claim to be, as a matter of fact,” Molly murmured. “It’s a local tradition. No way of proving it, of course, but the Edges are quite proud of their ancestry. Most people would keep quiet about it, if someone way back had been responsible for a curse, but not that lot. . . Now,” she said briskly. “If you’re going to this bonfire, wrap up well – and keep an eye on Rose for me. She gets rather excited on these occasions.”

What she meant was that Rose Salt had a crush on Tony Edge. They could see her, standing in the shadows, peering at Uncle Harold as he poured petrol on the bonfire. She was still wearing her woolly pixie-hood and the long brown mack, and clinging on to her old shopping bag. Tony was surrounded by a group of giggling admirers. They watched him fit a big harness on to his shoulders, then slot a long pole into it, down a leather pouch, rather like a boy scout carrying a flag. Then he began to sway about, laughing and chasing after all the girls. The bonfire had blazed up already, and in the orange glare Prill saw the outline of a horse’s skull.

“Old Hob, Old Hob, Give him a tanner, give him a bob,” Tony was shouting, and lurching round the field, careering up to little knots of people who stood warming themselves at the fire. Oliver was fascinated by the horse, and stuck very close to it as Tony charged about, but it was too spooky for Prill.

The huge, grinning skull, hung with tattered ribbons, waved and dipped in the flickering light, and bonfire sparks showered up over it like gold rain. “Come on, Posie,” she whispered, skirting round the edge of the bonfire to avoid Tony and his horrible horse. “Your dad’s brought some sausages out. Should we have one?” Prill had acquired a little friend, George Massey’s two-year-old daughter. They had seen her that afternoon helping her father in the garden, and Prill had crossed the road to say hello.

She was the complete opposite of their small sister. Alison was solid and dark, with a red face, and charged about in a state of perpetual stickiness. This child was doll-like and fragile-looking, with a mass of curly blonde hair. Colin had christened her Goldilocks. Her mother Brenda was at home, trying to get Posie’s six-month-old brother Sam to sleep. Prill was only too delighted to look after her while George Massey carried food round on trays.

The Edges weren’t at all grateful. “It’s not Bonfire Night, y’know,” someone grumbled, inspecting a baked potato, then putting it back. “We don’t normally have food. Any road, it’s burnt this is.” But the Puddings were out in force, all standing in a line and staring into the flames, the fierce light splashing their intense little faces. They grabbed all that was offered, sausages, potatoes, ginger parkin, and gobbled away in silence. “I don’t know,” George Massey muttered to the Blakemans. “There’s no pleasing some people. They might say thank you.”

After about ten minutes the two butcher brothers dragged an old hamper up to the fire and opened the lid. From all over the field dark shadows flocked to it, like wasps to a jampot. Tony left Old Hob in the grass and shoved his way to the front. “Clear off, Rose Salt,” they heard. But the adoring little figure still trailed after him, keeping her distance, in the darkness.

Before the costumes were thrown on the fire people put them on and tore round noisily. There was a definite excitement in the air now; this was obviously much more important than spuds and sausages. George Massey was rather surprised. “I didn’t know this went on,” he said, watching faceless shapes struggle into flopping garments.

Winnie had told them that the Stang Mummers’ costumes were rather special, very brightly coloured, and each one decorated with a special emblem to tell you who it was. On the night all players wore hoods that fell over their faces.

In the dark everything was reduced to a black silhouette, and there was a lot of pushing and shouting. They watched two figures fight over something and eventually tear it in two. Then, quite suddenly, the bobbing shapes separated out like a line of paper men, and went dancing crazily round the bonfire, hand in hand.

“I want to, I want to,” grizzled Posie Massey. She liked dressing up. Her father was feeling rather peeved. His wife had gone to all this trouble with the food, and they’d treated him like dirt. It was his field anyway, the Edges only rented it, and the bonfire was much too close to his fence. They couldn’t do anything properly.

“All right, kid,” he said. “Let’s find you something pretty. Don’t see why those boys should have all the fun, do you?”

“And I want ma horse,” the child whimpered. Posie Massey had a new playroom full of toys, and pride of her collection was a painted hobby horse on a wooden stick. She’d heard there was a horse at the bonfire and she’d brought hers.

It was a night for horses. As they went over to the hamper, Prill heard whinnying in the field by Elphins. Did fire frighten horses, she wondered, or did they warm themselves against the flames, like great cats? She thought of the three horses in the field below her window, Mister and Lucky Lady, the two chestnuts, and William, the lame old carthorse. What had those peaceful creatures to do with this devilish dancing, with these hateful, snapping jaws? Prill longed to be clopping down a quiet country lane on old William’s back, far away from the Edges, Stang, and that brooding pit in the valley bottom.

In helping to dress Posie, and getting her astride her tiny horse, George Massey made his first mistake. “Old Hob, Old Hob,” the child chanted in a little squeaky voice, and went tottering off towards the bonfire where the faceless black dancers were wriggling out of their costumes, rolling them into balls, and hurling them into the fire with hoarse shouts and squeals.

Everything happened very quickly after that. A hand shot out of the shadows and stopped the child in its tracks; in seconds she was surrounded by thrusting figures, a yelling, jostling scrum, all trying to grab the pathetic little prize. She screamed, and a voice said, “You can’t wear that, chuck. Off with it, come on. Got to go on the fire, that has.” Then another voice broke in, a girl’s, hard and peevish. “It’s not fair, any road. Girls can’t be in this. Give it me, will you. I’ll throw it on. Ouch! Give over!”

Costume, mask and hood were torn off the terrified toddler and thrown into the leaping flames, and the toy horse followed. With mirthless shrieks the dancers melted away into the dark, and Posie Massey was left alone on the grass, sobbing for her mother, and with Prill down on her knees, trying to comfort her.

George Massey suddenly saw red. He left Prill and Posie together and stormed off. In less than a minute he was back at the bonfire with something held high above his head. It was Old Hob.

Afterwards he swore that he thought it was part of the custom, that the horse was burned too, along with everything else, but nobody ever believed him. George simply wanted to take part in his own bonfire. They’d laughed at his food, hurt his child, and ignored his instructions about the fence. Nothing was left to burn now, except this great grinning puppet on a stick.

He was a tall man. With one heave he raised the thing right above his shoulders like a dumb-bell, twirled it round twice, then hurled it into the heart of the fire. Tony Edge let out a scream, then he went mad. Gibbering like an idiot he looked round wildly, then he ran to the gate and pulled something out of the grass, an old ladder they’d used to build the bonfire.

“Leave off, Tone!” someone shouted, but he was almost weeping with rage. He dragged his ladder to the fire and managed to lift it up on his own. The children stared, hypnotized, amazed at his brute strength. He was actually trying to crawl along it. “We’ll save him,” he was bellowing. “We’ve got to save him.” His voice was half a scream, half a sob, and for one crazy moment Prill felt quite sorry for him.

But the uncles had taken over and were pulling him back. “Don’t be stupid, Tone! Leave off, will you!” Then – “Look at the fire, man!” No one had been watching it, and the weight of the ladder had made it slump over towards the freshly creosoted fence. Slowly the bonfire fell to pieces, there was no heart to it and it was shoddily built, like everything the Edges had a hand in. The crowd gasped and George Massey shouted hoarsely “I knew it. I knew something like this would happen.” The fence was alight already, and the flames were spreading right along. It was like watching the fuse go up on a huge firework.

There were buckets of water lined up behind the fence. George had made his preparations, he wasn’t born yesterday. He bellowed instructions to Harold and Frank Edge, then tore off to dial 999. Then he got into his brand-new car and backed it down his drive. Thank heaven my insurance is in order, he was thinking, as he ran back to the field. Let’s hope I won’t need it.

But he hadn’t reckoned with the wind. It was sucking burning brands out of the fire and hurling them into the air. One of them landed on the garage roof, and it was timber. He rang the fire brigade again and told them things were getting out of hand. “Don’t worry, sir,” a calm country voice said on the end of the phone. “They’re on their way. They’ll be with you in five minutes.”

Oliver, Colin and Prill were told to keep out of the way, with Posie. They stood back and watched, but it was no good telling the Edges what to do. They were all trying to help with the chain of buckets, but there were so many of them and it was so dark. All they succeeded in doing was wreaking havoc. Several buckets got spilt, a child was burned when something fell out of the fire, and Prill heard Sid arguing with his sister about who should help Uncle Frank as he beat at the flattened embers with a broom.

“Sometimes I think that family can’t help it.” Molly’s words came back to Colin, as he watched their hopeless efforts. Were they really trying to help George Massey? Or were they deliberately being stupid? Half of him suspected that they were quite enjoying themselves, almost willing everything to go up in flames.

The first call had been answered immediately, and an engine had been dispatched to Stang within minutes, tearing with screaming sirens down the misty April lanes. It wasn’t an easy village to find, but one man on board knew this part of Cheshire like the back of his hand and he guided them.

But somehow the driver kept missing his way. Two miles out of Ranswick they got lost in a tangle of roads and had to turn back. Then they reached a dead end. “Road Up” one sign said, and another, “Road Closed, Due to Flooding”. The chief fireman was getting frantic because calls kept coming through on his radio. Where were they? Couldn’t they hurry up? Couldn’t honest ratepayers expect more than this from an emergency call? Were they making their wills?

“This is beyond me,” the man at the wheel said dumbly, turning round yet again and tearing back up a hill. “It’s just like the war. It’s like the day they took all the signposts away because of Jerry.”

It took them a good half-hour to find Stang, and when they arrived it was all over. The fence was gone, George Massey’s new double garage was a charred ruin, and his wife Brenda was weeping quietly at the kitchen table.

CHAPTER SIX

If the Edges were hoping that George Massey would pack his bags and go, they must have been very disappointed the next morning. Colin could see him out of the bedroom window, clearing up last night’s debris quite cheerfully. It would take more than a fire to shift him. He’d never been happy with that garage anyway and he was already planning a new one, with a games room on top.

Winnie Webster pedalled past on her bicycle and Colin heard them discussing the new costumes. “I’ve ordered the material,” she was saying to George, “and I’m going into Ranswick later to collect it. But surely, now. . .”

“Don’t let’s discuss it out here, Winnie. Get them to send me the bill, as we agreed. See you at tonight’s rehearsal,” he called after her, as if nothing had happened.

Colin got dressed and took Jessie out for a walk. Sid was lolling against Edge Brothers’ shop window, and inside Tony was serving someone with sausages. “Why aren’t you at school, Sid?” said Winnie. “You’ve not broken up yet, have you?”

The boy gave a big sniff. “Coldansorethroat, miss,” he said, wiping his nose on his sleeve.

“Use your handkerchief, Sid. I suppose that means you’ll miss the rehearsal?”

“Oh no, miss,” he replied, with another almighty sniff.

“Go home to bed then,” she flung tartly over her shoulder, and pedalled away.

Colin walked up the gloomy lane to Stang church. There was a feeble sun shining, but it didn’t feel much warmer. He might join the others in Molly’s studio when he got back; she was showing them how to throw pots. It was always warm in there, even when the kiln wasn’t on; the thick old walls obviously retained the heat. The poodles had discovered that too, and Dotty kept disappearing. Yesterday Molly had found her nesting in a box of jumble she’d left in there for the next church féte, and she was always climbing into drawers and hiding. Dotty was a good name for her; she had a screw loose.

All the way to the church Colin kept stopping and looking round. He felt he was being followed. It was nothing he could see or hear, the only sound was his feet squelching through last year’s leaves; there was nothing but the damp, dripping lane, and the trees that clasped leafless hands over his head, stealing the light.

He let Jessie off the lead and she went romping ahead and out of sight. The churchyard was very quiet. He looked round for the builders, but there was no sign of them. No sign either of whoever had followed him up the lane. No one there but the dead. He walked over to the bottom of the tower and peered up through the scaffolding. If he was going to be an archaeologist he’d have to get used to clambering about on old buildings. Anyway, he wasn’t chicken. Not like Oliver, who didn’t even like using lifts.

He left Jessie snuffling about in the long grass and cautiously made his way up the first ladder to the top of the square tower. But he knew he couldn’t climb an inch higher. Over his head the thin steeple was bending horribly. Colin simply couldn’t look at it. Nausea and dizziness swept over him like a cold sea, and he made his way down again, blindly this time, hardly daring to open his eyes.

Back on the level he sat down on a flat gravestone and wiped the sweat from his face. He felt so sick he couldn’t raise his face again to look at that awful tower. Then he heard something, a sliding, grinding noise from up above, and a loud rattling, as if someone was working ropes and pulleys. Everything started to move at once. The noises grew louder and louder, all merging together in one massive wave of sound, powerful enough to split an eardrum. The steeple was falling.

“No, no,” he moaned, shaking his head wildly from side to side. But through closed eyes he could see everything, the crooked finger beckoning, lurching sideways, then crashing down and disappearing into huge clouds of rubble and dust, turning the enormous churchyard trees to matchwood. As it fell, the Edges, Wrights and Bovers leaped from their graves and ran shrieking down the sodden lane towards Blake’s Pit.

Colin screamed and forced his eyelids open. A black shower of rooks flew up into the sky, but the tower, with its leaning steeple, was perfectly still. The builders’ tarpaulins flapped gently in the wind and in the grass at his feet lay Jessie. She was trying to bark but only made a pathetic little sound, like the mewing of a kitten, and one of her shaggy front paws had disappeared under a large piece of newly cut stone.

He took her back to Elphins in the builder’s barrow. She was a heavy dog to lift, but he rolled her in somehow and set off. She didn’t struggle, or try to bite him, she just lay there in a heap, uttering dry little yelping sounds. Colin loved this dog. Rage and hatred welled up inside him towards whoever had done such a thing, but as he manoeuvred the barrow over the potholes his hot passions ebbed away, leaving him cold and numb. That stone hadn’t been aimed at Jessie at all; it had been meant for him.

He tried to keep his eyes away from the sticky pink-and-white pulp that was the dog’s left paw. Her whole leg might be broken, and she might limp for ever. What use would that be to a creature like this? Colin couldn’t bear it. As he thought of her tearing across the fields on their long country walks at home, his eyes filled with tears. She’d be better dead.

Who was responsible? His first thought was Sid Edge, but that was impossible. He’d climbed up the church tower as far as the base of the steeple, and seen the tiny platform constructed for the two stonemasons. There was no way Sid could have got up there without Colin seeing him, unless he’d climbed up from the other side, and he wasn’t Spiderman. The lump of sandstone was enormous anyway. How could anyone have heaved that at him with such force?

As he pushed the barrow past the village shop he saw Sid lolling against the window. He looked as though he’d been there all day, and his nose was running like a tap. He said nothing as Colin trudged by, but glanced in the barrow with cold curiosity, and sniffed. No coming forward to see what the matter was, no offer of help. Resisting the temptation to spit in his eye, Colin left Jessie by Molly’s car and ran into the house.

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