Chill (8 page)

The next day Samuel was up early, before the rest of Dunadd were awake. He closed the door of the cottage behind him and stepped out into the icy-cold silence of the moor. It was quiet outside the cottage. No one else was about, except of course old Mr Hughes, attempting to clear the new snow that had fallen overnight.

“Where are you off to at this time in the morning?” the old man asked.

“Oh, nowhere special. Just out for a walk.”

“Oh aye? All this fresh air’s getting to you, lad,” he remarked with a knowing smile. “Don’t be getting up to mischief again, and setting the women to worry. We had enough of that last night.”

Samuel smiled and promised he wouldn’t, then set off down the driveway, under the frozen beech trees, hoping no one would notice him from the rows of gleaming windows.

He remembered standing with Fiona in the corridor last night as she whispered “Meet me at the waterfall.” She knew the quickest way to Lynns Farm and would take him there. It was important to speak to Mr MacFarlane, and hear what he had to say.

Samuel whistled to himself as he walked beneath the snow-clad trees. His breath froze as soon as it left his body.
He crossed the narrow lane, and vaulted the gate into the fields below. He sank to his knees in deep snow, and struggled to make his way down into the gully by walking on the top of the snowdrifts. A milky white mist was just lifting off the hills, and the peaks of distant mountains broke through like islands in a sea. They shone pink and purple in the strange early morning light. It was amazing how half of the moor could be bathed in sunlight, while the other was still cloaked in shadow. It was part of the beauty of the place. The mist created an illusion. If you didn’t know better, Samuel thought, you would think there was a lake down there, lapping at the edges of the moor like a distant shore.

He heard the waterfall before he saw it, and made his way towards it. Curtains of frozen ice were caught in its flow, fringed with gleaming icicles. It was a startling sight, and he stared at it for some moments, transfixed. Fiona hadn’t arrived yet, so he waited for her, listening to the sound of the water travelling under the ice. Normally the roar of the waterfall was deafening, but much of it was frozen over, held back, caught in mid-motion.

A weak winter sun rose above the mist, and still no one appeared. For no reason that he could explain, Samuel began to feel nervous, as if he was being watched. He looked around him at the high ridges, half-expecting to see the ghosts of slaughtered infantry men appear above him.

He glanced at his watch. It was strange of Fiona not to be on time. She’d probably slept in, or else she’d forgotten all about their meeting – although he knew in his heart of hearts that wouldn’t really be like Fiona. She was as keen as he was to continue their investigation.

Suddenly a sound caught his attention. A small pebble had been dropped into the water from a great height. He looked up. There, on a high ridge way above him stood a dark figure in the snow. Samuel’s heart sank. It was Charles.

“Waiting for someone?” he shouted, above the sound of the water. “She won’t be coming, I’m afraid. I’ve made sure of that.”

Then Charles jumped down from his high perch above the waterfall, and made his way round to where Samuel stood. Samuel watched him in silence, refusing to be drawn.

“Thought you’d meet up with my little sister then, did you? On the sly?”

“Why does it bother you so much?”

Charles stepped closer to him and said “I don’t like strangers poking around. I heard what you were up to last night, by the way.” Samuel remembered the door quietly closing. “Thought you’d go and see the old man at Lynns farm, did you? I wouldn’t advise it. He doesn’t like unexpected guests.”

“We’re not doing anything wrong,” Samuel said. “We just want to find out more about the house. Its history …”

“Is that right?”

Charles eyed him angrily. “That man keeps a shotgun in his barn, and you want to take my sister there? Don’t you think my mother might have something to say about that?”

“We’d be careful,” Samuel protested.

“Careful?” Charles laughed. “If you were careful you wouldn’t even think about going there.”

“Why? What’s so terrible about the place?”

“It’s not the place. It’s the man,” Sebastian added quietly.
He had appeared behind Samuel now, to join forces with his brother.

“We’re just trying to protect our sister,” Charles said.

“From what?”

But Charles just looked at Samuel. No one knew what burdens he had to carry in silence, not even his own brother. He wasn’t about to tell a complete stranger about them, an outsider, a newcomer.

“One little reminder,” he went on. “You may think you’re nice and cosy living in that cottage, but one word from me, and I could get her to evict you, just like that.”

“What is it you’re so afraid of?” Samuel said, looking him in the eye.

Charles’s face was white and he looked haunted, as if Samuel’s words had struck true.

“Just keep away from our sister. Okay?”

“Where is she?” Samuel asked now.

Suddenly Charles grinned wolfishly in a way that Samuel had never seen before, and held up a key in his hand. He dangled it in front of Samuel’s face. “Learning a lesson,” he said. “Learning to accept that her brothers know what’s best for her.”

Samuel’s chest tightened with panic. “Where is she?” he cried again, “You can’t have locked her up!”

But just as he was about to grab Charles’ arm Charles pushed him backwards, knocking him to the ground. The shock of it took Samuel’s breath away. He lay winded for a time, before gradually struggling to his feet.

The brothers had turned and fled, leaving him alone beside the waterfall.

As Charles and Sebastian hurried away up the hillside towards Dunadd, Charles suddenly stopped in his tracks, as if frozen to the spot. His breath was coming in rasps. A vision filled his head, like a flashback or memory from a time before. All he could see were the sweating flanks of a large black horse pounding across the turf towards the hidden ravine where the waterfall lay. He could hear the animal snorting with the effort, flecks of foam flying from its bit and bridle as it galloped. Its unknown rider urged it on, but Charles couldn’t see the rider. He could only make out the horse, see its sweat and hear its effort as it surged ahead. It was a glimpse only, and then just as suddenly the vision was gone, leaving Charles confused as he stood there in the snow.

His brother looked at him in alarm.

“What’s wrong?”

“I … I don’t know … Nothing,” Charles stammered. He slowly shook his head free of the vision, and the pair made their way back to the house.

Samuel looked around him desperately, at the frozen-white curtain of water and the high ridges of the gully surrounding him. He had to get back to Dunadd and tell Mrs Morton what the boys had done to Fiona. But then he froze. They were her sons. She would never believe him. It was their word against his.

He thought about this as he made his way up the steep hillside beside the waterfall. It was hard work, climbing through the snow. The moor, which had seemed so beautiful
only moments before, was now a hostile environment. He no longer noticed the magical quality of the mist on the lower plain, or the cerulean blue of the sky against the whiteness of snow. Nothing else mattered but the pain and exhaustion in his body, and the need to find Fiona.

Finally, when he reached the road, he stopped to rest against the gatepost, trying to get his breath back. His thoughts were with his friend. How could her own brothers do that to her, lock her up somewhere? Back at Dunadd he ran into the big house, his feet pounding noisily along the empty corridors, calling out her name, but there seemed to be no one about. Granny Hughes was not in her usual place, scolding the world in general and doing the dishes. Instead he found Mrs Morton sitting at the kitchen table drinking a cup of coffee, stroking Lettuce the rabbit who had hopped off the table into her lap. She looked alarmed at Samuel’s outburst.

“Whatever’s the matter?” she said.

“Fiona,” he cried, out of breath. “She’s locked up somewhere. Charles and Sebastian did it.”

There was a long silence.

“I’ve already spoken to Charles, Samuel. He told me what you were planning to do. I warned you not to go anywhere near Lynns Farm. If you disobey me again, and lead Fiona into trouble as well, I shall have to take serious action.”

“But they’ve locked up Fiona,” he spluttered. “I saw the key.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” she snapped, looking irritated for the first time. “My sons might do many things I disapprove of, but they do not, as a rule, lock up their sister. Fiona went out early this morning,” she went on. “She’s off
enjoying herself somewhere, and has promised to be back by lunchtime.”

“But where?” he cried, beginning to despair.

Mrs Morton shook her head. “Where she usually goes. All those secret haunts of yours.”

Samuel spun round and left the room. He knew there was no point in talking to Mrs Morton. She would never believe his word against her two sons.

He ran down the corridor and out into the courtyard.

He stood on the lawn in front of Dunadd. A thick white blanket of freshly-fallen snow lay across it, but there were new tracks, as if someone had recently passed that way. The boating pond, he thought in a flash of inspiration. He followed the tracks along the tree-lined path.

The pond was still frozen over. He stepped onto the jetty and walked to the end of it. The blue rowing boat was trapped in ice, untouched. No one had been able to use it in weeks.

Suddenly, in the stillness, he heard a sound, very faint at first, but then more distinct. It was the sound of someone crying. At first he wondered if it was the Weeping Woman, come to haunt him even here, but he quickly realized it couldn’t be. This was a different sound, less sad, and it was accompanied by an angry knocking noise. Someone was knocking and banging against the wooden door of the summer house on the other side of the water.

He leapt to his feet and ran round the pond, calling out Fiona’s name as he did so. He had no key but pressed his ear to the locked door.

“Is that you, Samuel?” she called in a muffled voice. “For
God’s sake, get me out of here.”

“Wait there,” he said.

“As if I can do anything else!” she called back, as he disappeared behind the summer house where a barbecue and a tin box of supplies were kept. He reappeared with a long metal bar, and broke open the lock.

“Wait till I get my hands on those brothers of mine,” Fiona spat. “They tricked me – they told me you’d come up here …”

“There’s something strange about all this,” Samuel murmured. “Charles doesn’t usually carry on like this, does he?”

Fiona shrugged. “I don’t know. He’s frightened.”

“But what of?”

The two of them were silent.

“They warned me off going to Lynns Farm,” Samuel said.

“How did they …?”

“They must have been listening last night, when we fixed it up. I thought I saw someone … And not only that,” Samuel added, “but your mother knows about it too. They told her.”

Fiona’s face fell. “How can we go to Lynns Farm now?”

“You try and stop me.”

Upstairs in the tower Charles sat on his bed, his head in his hands. Down at the waterfall something strange had happened to him, but he didn’t know what. He kept seeing the image of a horse pounding towards the ravine, its muscular black flanks sweating with the effort. He didn’t understand any of it; he was confused, but he knew that something was terribly wrong. He felt strangely frightened.

And what had compelled him to lock his sister in the summer house?

He thought again of his father’s letter and the dreams that came to disturb him at night. He needed to confide in someone, anyone. He couldn’t carry this burden alone. It was too much. But who could he tell? There was no one. No one would understand …

When Samuel and Fiona got back to Dunadd, far from being pleased to see them, Mrs Morton was furious and told Fiona she would not be allowed out for a week.

“I know what you’ve been up to, Fiona. The boys have told me. I don’t want you going anywhere near that place, do you hear me? Nor Samuel for that matter either.”

“Why not?” Fiona cried. “What’s wrong with Mr MacFarlane?”

“He’s a bitter cantankerous old man, that’s what. He’s unpleasant and rude and a troublemaker. I must say that when I agreed to let the Cunninghams rent the cottage, I didn’t realize Samuel would give us this much trouble.”

“But he hasn’t,” Fiona protested. “It’s Charles. He’s making you believe his lies.”

“That’s enough Fiona.”

“But Samuel is my friend!”

Mrs Morton softened slightly. “All this nonsense has to stop. Samuel has to learn to get along with the boys, without all these arguments.”

“He has tried. It’s Charles who doesn’t like him.”

“I won’t have you telling tales, Fiona.”

“But it’s true!”

“That’s enough!”

“If you say so!” Fiona scowled, and stomped off to her room to brood.

“That’s exactly where you should be, madam!” Chris Morton shouted after her daughter. “You need some time alone to think about the consequences of your actions. And there’ll be no more jaunts with Samuel for a while.”

But her sons did not get off lightly either. Having dealt with Fiona, she rounded on them angrily.

“And you two needn’t stand there smirking. Locking your sister up in the summer house in these freezing conditions. Have you any idea how dangerous that could have been? When were you planning to let her out?” Her fury knew no bounds. It was a very black household that day, with everyone banished to their rooms and Chris Morton looking as sour-faced as Samuel had ever seen her. He decided to
make himself scarce. It felt as if the whole of Dunadd lay under a dark cloud, and he wondered if it was his fault. Everyone had been getting on fine before he came along. Now everything was ruined.

Back at the cottage Isabel watched him as he took off his boots in the narrow flagged kitchen.

“Things not exactly going well between you and the boys at the moment?”

Samuel shrugged. “You could say that!”

“Try to be patient with them,” she murmured. “They’ll come round eventually.”

“I have been patient. I mean, I am being.”

She sighed. “There’s something bothering those boys.” She put her book down on the arm of the sofa. “Maybe it’s something to do with their father’s death.”

“Is that
my
fault?”

“No, but …” she looked out of the window, and sighed again. “If only it would stop snowing long enough for the roads to clear. Then we could get you all off to school. It’s like a pressure cooker at the moment. You just need some distraction.”

“S’pose,” he mumbled, disappearing down the corridor to his room.

Isabel stared after him.
Being his usual communicative self,
she thought as she stared into the heart of the stove.

Samuel felt wretched and lonely. Fiona was not allowed out to see him, and he missed her badly. He had no one to discuss it all with, the questions and thoughts that were buzzing around his head. He still had the ebony box in his possession, the worn leather bag, the ring and the
tartan safely stowed away inside it, along with the pages of the journal. What if the Mortons suspected something, and realized it had gone missing from its usual place in the library? Did they even know about it? Samuel wasn’t sure. There had been so much dust on the lid when he first discovered the box that it looked as if it hadn’t been touched in years. He thought about going down to visit Lynns Farm on his own, without Fiona, but he couldn’t do that. He would just have to wait until he could arrange to see her again.

Later that afternoon, as he was collecting firewood for the stove, he heard a footstep behind him and spun round. He thought at first it might be Fiona, but Sebastian was standing there, looking sheepish.

“What do
you
want?” Samuel said.

“Look, I’m really sorry about what happened at the waterfall, you know.”

Samuel turned his back, and continued to pick up firewood.

“It’s a pity we can’t all just be friends, really,” Sebastian went on.

“That’s rich,” Samuel muttered. “Coming from you.”

Sebastian looked awkward. “I suppose that did come out a big wrong. Look, I just wanted to say … Charles gets so worked up about things, that’s all.”

“I’ve noticed!” Then he looked Sebastian in the eye. “Why do you always do what he says all the time?”

Sebastian lowered his eyes. “He’s my brother. He gets easily offended.”

“So you let him bully you?”

“It’s not like that.”

“What is it like then?” Samuel asked. “I just don’t get it.”

Sebastian sighed. “Charles doesn’t trust anyone. He’s frightened all the time. Our father’s death, and the way he died, well, it frightens him. If I turned against him as well, he’d never get over it.”

“He would,” Samuel said. “In time. People always do. Anyway, you can’t let him bully you all your life.”

Sebastian ignored this. “He’s right about the farm, though. You shouldn’t go there alone. Or with Fiona. It’s dangerous.”

Samuel turned away from him.

“You’re not going to do anything stupid, are you?” Sebastian added. “Like try to go to Lynns Farm on your own?”

“Of course not,” Samuel lied. But he was making his plans. If Fiona wasn’t allowed out to see him, he would have to go alone.

“Looks like we might be able to get you to school soon,” Isabel remarked later that day, glancing out of the window.

Samuel looked up, his heart sinking.

“School?” he said.

“Yes. You remember. That building with classrooms? I’ve been listening to the radio. Looks like a thaw might set in before the end of the week. Thank God! I’m beginning to forget what the rest of the world looks like.”

Samuel looked crestfallen.

“It’ll be good for you,” she went on. “You’ll make new friends. It’ll take your mind off things.” By “things” she was clearly referring to his troubles with Charles and Sebastian.
She didn’t know all of the details – Chris Morton had not spoken to her about it yet – but she could make an intelligent guess as to how things stood.

So their long winter of isolation was coming to an end. And perhaps he would never have time to find out the truth about Catherine Morton after all.

Samuel was sitting in his room the next morning, trying to read. He couldn’t concentrate, his mind wouldn’t focus. Suddenly, there was a knocking sound on his window. He sat up on the bed and saw Fiona’s face peering in at him from beneath a brightly-striped woolly hat.

“Quick. Let me in!” she mouthed through the glass. He flung open the window, and a pile of powdery-dry snow fell into his room.

“Help me up,” she grunted, as she hauled herself in over the window sill.

“I thought you were grounded!”

“I am, but I couldn’t stand it any more. We’re going to Lynns Farm today, and that’s that. I’ve made up my mind. You weren’t thinking of going on your own, were you?” she added then, glancing at him suspiciously.

“Of course not,” Samuel said.

“Because I’d hate to think I was missing out on anything. And anyway, it wouldn’t be safe on your own.”

“I know. That’s what I was thinking. That’s why the thought never crossed my mind.”

Her eyes narrowed, and she cuffed him round the head.

“What was that for?”

“It’s good to see you again,” was all she said.

Samuel grinned. “You too.”

“If Mum finds out I’m missing, I’ll be in big trouble.”

“She can’t keep you locked up forever.”

“I don’t know. My family are good at that. Listen, if we want to go to Lynns Farm, I reckon we should go now.”

They kept to the trees as they made their way down to the waterfall. They crossed the lane, and then climbed the wide five-bar gate into the fields beyond. The wind still carried the sting of the arctic in it, and their faces froze.

The roar of water travelling beneath ice met their ears. The Wharry Burn had cut a rocky gorge into the hillside at this point, and they avoided this, knowing how dangerous it could be for a person who didn’t know the moor well. In the deep snow you could walk right off the precipice without realizing it was there.

Fiona kept glancing nervously over her shoulder.

“What if anyone’s followed us?”

“They won’t.”

“You’re right,” she said, trying to take courage. “Besides, they wouldn’t dare do that to me again.” When Samuel saw her blue eyes flash with fury like that, he could believe it.

“You’re really scary when you’re angry, did you know that?” Samuel murmured.

They skirted the side of the ravine, and slid down the sloping bank beside the waterfall.

They went right to the water’s edge, beneath the waterfall itself, and stared up at it.

Samuel thought of the last time he had been here. He shivered with cold.

“Can you believe we sometimes swim here, in the
summer?” Fiona said.

“Imagine doing that now!”

“No thanks!”

Around them the land rose up steeply so that they were in a dip of the moor, surrounded on all sides by high ridges, almost like a room with walls. Samuel kept looking up as he had done last time, half-expecting to see soldiers or figures on the crest of the hill, or more likely her brothers re-appearing.

“It’s strange how I always feel watched here,” he said, looking around. “There’s something about this place.”

“This is where the Government army camped the night before the battle,” Fiona said. “There’s an atmosphere here, isn’t there?”

Samuel looked up at the high ridges and nodded.

“And what was it all for?” she went on. Neither side had claimed a victory in the end. After a day of pointless fighting and massive loss of life, the Duke of Argyll didn’t even bother to turn up the next day to renew the fighting. His men simply drifted off, unwilling to fight another day.

Fiona bent down and kicked aside the snow to reveal a ring of stones that had formed the site of an old campfire.

“That was us last summer, before you moved in,” she said. “Me and the boys camped out here one night. We had a fire and cooked sausages. It was great fun.” She looked sad for a moment, as if she was remembering a time when she had got on better with her brothers than she did at the moment. Something had come between them. Life had soured at Dunadd.

“It’s my fault, isn’t it?” Samuel said, looking guilty.

He couldn’t help thinking that the three Morton children had been wandering this moor for years before he came along. They were born here, and knew no other life. This was everything to them, everything they had ever known.

Fiona shook her head. “This place is a million times better since you came.”

But still she looked sad about her brothers.

“Are we going to visit this Lynns Farm or not?” she said, goading them into action.

“Should we have phoned first?” Samuel said as they followed the course of the Wharry Burn. “Let him know we’re coming? After all, your mother says he’s a bitter, cantankerous old man.”

“It’s probably best he doesn’t know. We’ll just turn up.”

“That’s true. And if he doesn’t like it, we leave.”

“And the shotgun?” Fiona added, almost jokingly.

“We’ll worry about that one later.”

They looked up at the horizon where a weak winter sun was climbing steadily into the sky. Lynns Farm lay somewhere beyond the waterfall, in a hollow, so that it was impossible to see it at all from the road.

As they made their way beside the burn, a figure watched them from above. Had they turned their heads they would have seen him standing there, dark against the snow. Charles watched them, and again he suffered the strange vision he’d seen earlier, like a flashback or some long-buried memory from a time before. A horse with an unknown rider, pounding its way towards the ravine …

The waters of the Wharry Burn babbled and gurgled beneath
the ice, as Fiona and Samuel made their way into the gully.

Finally the farmhouse came into view, a small low-lying whitewashed building with several chimneys and low eaves. It lay in shadow, as if the sun rarely got this far beyond the trees. No birds sang. It seemed a very dark and secretive place, as if no postman, milkman or delivery van ever came here.

The farmyard looked neglected and deserted, broken bits of machinery and farm equipment lay around, unused. The windows of the house were blank and staring, and Fiona and Samuel surveyed the gloomy scene in silence, wondering what to do next. They left the cover of the trees and began to walk forward. They had to pluck up courage to cross the empty yard towards the house, in full view of those windows. Suddenly a big black vicious-looking dog emerged from an open door and hurled itself towards them, snarling and gnashing its teeth. It was yanked back on its chain, having run as far as it could. The children stood rooted to the spot.

The figure of an elderly man appeared from the shadows, and squinted his eyes to see what the noise was about.

“Quiet, dog,” he growled in a low voice, and the dog instantly fell silent.

The two groups regarded each other in silence across the empty farmyard.