Chapter One of my Novel, Part Two
You can find the first half of Chapter One here. Make sure to read it first!
As he exited onto the street, a voice made Ethan jump.
“Where are you three sneaking off to?” the voice said.
It belonged to Jonathan Townley, Hannah and Peter’s sixteen-year-old brother. He sat on the front gate next to his girlfriend Esther. Unlike the twins, Jonathan had dark, almost black hair and a pair of eyebrows so animated they appeared to have their own rich, inner life. They arched above his brown eyes now as he studied his sister and brother.
“We’re not sneaking anywhere,” Hannah said.
“Hannah, you were literally tip-toeing,” Jonathan replied.
“I was not!”
“We’re going to Kirkbride Hall,” Peter blurted out.
Hannah shot Peter a disapproving look. Jonathan frowned. “Really? Mum and Dad won’t like that.” He hopped off the gate.
“They don’t need to know,” Hannah said. “We’ll be back before dark. You won’t tell them?”
“We won’t tell because we’re coming,” Esther said. “Aren’t we, Jonathan?”
Jonathan frowned before saying, “Yes, of course.”
Dry leaves and rubbish stirred at their feet in the gusty wind. It was the first genuinely bitter day of autumn, and Ethan cinched his collar to his throat, his knuckles whitening. The shadows of the cars and lampposts were growing long. Dark clouds textured the sky. He was glad of Peter walking alongside him, and the others up ahead. He kept his eyes on the great house looming over the village, watching for any strange lights in the windows, and he strained his ears listening for any sound on the wind.
“You okay, Ethan?” Peter asked.
“I’m okay,” he replied.
Peter nodded. “For some reason, I keep thinking about smugglers,” he said. “What if there are smugglers in the house?”
“Are smugglers still a thing?” Ethan asked.
Peter laughed. “Probably not. But knowing that doesn’t seem to help.” He looked up the street to where the rows of brick houses framed the green wedge of the hill and the great house perched on top. “But I still want to go. I want to know what’s inside. There might be—I don’t know.”
“Seaweed?” Ethan said.
Peter grinned. “Maybe. But it’s a mystery, and that’s why it’s brilliant like Hannah said.”
Ethan watched Hannah striding ahead next to Jonathan and Esther, her arms swinging at her sides, her hair bouncing on her shoulders. “Why is she never afraid?” he asked.
Peter glanced at him. “You don’t think she’s afraid?”
“Is she afraid?”
“Yes!”
Ethan looked back at Hannah. “How can you tell?”
“I’m her twin.”
“Yes, but—”
“I’ll give you the secret, but don’t tell Hannah because she’ll kill me and then kill you, then kill me again: the braver Hannah acts, the more scared she is.”
“So, right now…”
“Yeah, she’s terrified. But…” Peter hesitated as if weighing his words. “I think Hannah needs to believe there’s something more to life than just… I don’t know, school and homework and then a job and a car and insurance and whatever else adults do with their lives. She’s always been like that. Restless.”
“The Bright Road?”
“Yeah, but don’t tell her I said any of this.”
“I won’t,” Ethan said.
Soon, they reached the edge of the village. The sun was now low, and the house had merged with the hill’s long shadow so that it seemed to reach down the slope toward them. A thin path, barely visible in the growing gloom, ran from where they stood up and up toward the house. On their right, Potter’s Wood was already in evening shadows. On their left, the street dropped away toward the sea where tiny boats jostled in the wind on the harbour. The moon was bright and full beyond the scudding clouds.
They began to climb. Soon, the lights of the village slipped away behind them, swallowed by the shadow of the hill. The long grass hissed against Ethan’s legs. He stared down at his scuffed white shoes, trying to steady his breathing. Just keep walking. Don’t think. It’s just an ancient house. Alone on a hill. Where people have disappeared.
At the summit, curving gently toward the cliff’s edge on the left and the first dark trees of Potter’s Wood on the right, was a tall brick wall. Age had pitted and blackened the bricks. In the middle was an iron gate through which Ethan could see the great lawn leading up to the jumbled shadow of the house.
On the gate was a large iron lock. Ethan rattled it. “It’s locked,” he said, his voice fighting the wind.
“Yeah, no one’s meant to come up here,” Jonathan said.
“Have you been here before?” Ethan asked.
“No,” Jonathan said. “Some kids from school came here last summer. They told me about the lock.”
“They didn’t go any further,” Esther said. Her hair whipped in the wind, and she fished loose strands out of her mouth as she peered through the gate toward the house. “They wouldn’t tell us why, but something spooked them.”
Ethan glanced at Peter, who raised his eyebrows in a look of exaggerated fear that somehow made Ethan laugh, but the tightness in his chest remained.
“Should we go back?” Jonathan asked.
Across the lawn, the oak tree shivered in the wind. The clouds shifted and suddenly the moon gleamed in the dark windows of Kirkbride Hall as if inside a great light had been lit.
Hannah ran her hand along the rusted iron bars. “We can’t go back,” she said.
“We could climb that,” Peter said, pointing at a grey, ancient yew tree growing against the wall about twenty feet away.
Peter was the first to climb up and over, dropping with a faint thud. “It’s not too far,” he called back.
On the other side of the wall, the house seemed to have grown suddenly larger, rising out of the shadows, an impossible eruption of stone and slate, windows and towers. Dark clouds gathered in the sky.
They crossed the lawn, buffeted by the wind. The oak tree clicked and swayed overhead. Reaching the stone steps, they slowly climbed toward the entranceway, with its heavy green door framed by stone pillars and an archway carved with weather-worn figures: strange creatures, a tree with twisted limbs. Ethan trailed a few steps behind, craning his neck, and looking up. The house towered over him, cutting into the sky, blocking out the fading light, splitting the world in two.
“What’s the plan?” he asked.
“Simple,” Hannah said. “We go inside, find some ghost or treasure or a lost king, and then leave before dark. Easy.”
In the centre of the great green door, staring out at them with gleaming eyes was an owl-shaped brass knocker holding a ring in its curled talons. Flanking the door on either side were two bay windows with many small diamond-shaped panes of glass divided by carved stone. The children peered through the dark windows, pressing close to the glass, hands cupped over their eyes. Inside, Ethan could see vague, shadowy forms suspended in the gloom and the faintest hint of light glinting off something tall and pale in the centre of the room. What was it? Now that he was here, he could feel the house’s mystery pulling him in. What was on the other side of that green door?
“I can’t see anything,” Jonathan said, stepping back.
“There’s so much dust on these windows,” Esther said. “It’s weird they never knocked this place down or turned it into a hotel or something equally boring. I wonder why?”
“All the adults are afraid of it,” Hannah said. “They just won’t admit it. They keep changing the topic whenever I mention Kirkbride Hall.”
“In fairness, you mention it a lot,” Jonathan said.
Hannah shrugged and rattled the door handle. It was locked.
Peter bent down and checked under the ancient cast-iron doormat. “Ha!” he said, standing up and smiling. In his hand, he held a brass key.
“You’re kidding?” Hannah said, grinning.
“No,” Peter said.
The key had worn teeth and its head was a small owl with saucer eyes and a sharp beak.
“I don’t know about this,” Jonathan said.
“We have to go in now,” Hannah replied. “It’s fate! The house wants us to go in.”
“It’s a house, Hannah,” Jonathan said. “It can’t ‘want.’”
“This house can,” Hannah replied.
Jonathan raised his eyebrows. “That doesn’t make me want to go in any more than I did.”
It was growing dark; from far away, Ethan could hear the boom of the sea crashing against the cliffs. The sound seemed to echo the percussion of his own heart. He was struck by a sudden memory of being four years old and crying for his mother in an empty house. (His house? It had seemed so large, full of shadows and strange noises). He’d called and called, but his mother had never come. He shook his head. He did not want to think about his mother.
Peter studied the key thoughtfully, his brow creased together as though troubled.
“Peter?” Ethan asked. “What is it? Is there—”
Peter shook his head and smiled. “I’m okay,” he said.
“We’ll just step inside,” Hannah said, still arguing with Jonathan. “Just into the foyer.”
Jonathan looked at Esther, who shrugged. “We are here,” she said. “We kind of have to go inside now.”
Jonathan took a deep breath. “Okay. But just for a minute, then we go home. It’s almost dark.”
Peter suddenly held out the key toward Ethan. “Do you want to go first?” he asked. “Take the Bright Road?”
Ethan stared at the key glinting in the palm of Peter’s hand; the brass owl stared back at him with its wide, open eyes. He shook his head. He couldn’t do it. He couldn’t be the first to step into the unknown dark. “No, I dare you to go first,” he said to Peter, without thinking.
Peter held Ethan’s gaze for a moment, then nodded and said, “Okay, sure.”
“Go on, then,” Hannah said, standing close behind Peter as he put the key into the lock.
It turned with a click.
Peter opened the door, but after only a few inches, it wouldn’t budge. Peter pushed, but the door was stuck.
“Something blocking it,” he said, reaching into the dark interior, his face creased with concentration. “I can feel something.”
He strained for a moment, half in, half out of the house, and then, with a cry of success, pulled out a white stick.
“This was jammed against the door,” he said.
The stick was the length of a short walking staff and tapered at one end. Peter held it up and brandished it in front of him. “My sword,” he declared. “For slaying monsters.” He saluted them, said “Let’s go,” and stepped inside.
Before anyone could follow, the door slammed shut.
The children glanced at each other.
“Peter?” Jonathan called out, leaning toward the door.
There was no reply.
Hannah rapped on the door with her knuckles. “Peter, come on.”
Still no reply.
Jonathan rattled the door handle. It was locked. “Did Peter take the key?” he asked.
No one knew. Ethan’s heart pounded. The air thickened. Something wasn’t right. A cold, sinking feeling spread through his stomach, a dread heavier than fear. The wind tore at his coat, grasping and cold.
Jonathan lifted the brass ring and banged it down. “Peter!” he called. No response. He banged again, harder. “Peter!” His voice was ragged in the wind.
“Where is he? What’s happened?” Hannah asked, panic rising in her voice.
Jonathan stepped back and frantically surveyed the front of the house as if looking for another door. Esther had taken his hand. Hannah was peering through the glass. Ethan could hear the oak tree groaning behind him. Suddenly, he was back again in his house, four years old, crying out and no one answering, his fear so big it felt as if it had leapt out of his body and now prowled like an animal through the house. He’d felt so helpless then, and he could feel that same suffocating helplessness now. Why wasn’t Peter answering? What had happened to him?
Shattering glass made him jump. Hannah had picked up a loose stone from the steps and broken one of the bay windows next to the door. She hissed as she reached through, quickly snatching back her hand and putting it in her mouth.
“You okay?” Esther asked.
“I cut it,” Hannah said. She removed her hand. A red line ran across her palm. A drop of blood, bright as a berry, fell and splattered on the peeled wooden floorboards.
Ethan’s mouth felt very dry. He could hear the rush of his blood in his ears.
Jonathan carefully reached through the broken glass and stretched for the door handle. “Got it!” he grunted.
The door swung open.
On the other side was a great empty room lit by moonlight. There was no sign of Peter. No sound but the echo of their desperate voices calling. Hannah stepped inside, pushing past Jonathan. Red and orange leaves carpeted the floor, with more falling through the dark air, though Ethan could not see from where they came. What was going on? He could not take his eyes off the leaves.
“Peter?” Hannah called, her voice ripped away by a sudden gust of wind that blew through the door and stirred the leaves at her feet.
Two dark shapes split from the shadows on the far side of the room and flew overhead out the open door: an owl chased by a large black bird—a raven. The raven snapped at the owl’s tail feathers as it wheeled into the darkening sky, disappearing over Potter’s Wood. Ethan felt as if he’d suddenly tumbled beneath the rough surface of a dark tide. He could barely breathe. He felt disoriented, knocked about.
Hannah, Jonathan, and Esther had already started to cross the foyer. They were cupping their hands to their mouths, calling for Peter. Ethan stood on the threshold, wanting to cross over, wanting to follow the others deeper into the house, but his feet would not move. He could not go into that dark into which Peter had gone and not returned.
Hannah turned and looked at him. “Ethan, are you coming?”
Ethan’s heart hammered so hard it felt like it would burst. Everything in him screamed he should follow his friends and be there for Peter, but he couldn’t do it. He took a step back, then another, the weight of fear pressing down on him.
“I’ll go for help,” he said, the words heavy on his tongue. “We need help.”
In the dark, he could not see Hannah’s expression. But he imagined it—disappointment, maybe anger. But what could he do? He wasn’t brave like her. He wasn’t strong like Jonathan or smart like Esther. All he could do was run. He turned and fled across the wild lawn. The sky opened, and it began to rain, the cold drops mingled with his hot tears.
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