Dark Season: The Complete Box Set (31 page)

Book 6

Gothos

Prologue

I look up just as the night sky breathes fire straight down at me. There's a massive explosion nearby, rocking everything around me and knocking me off my feet. Scrambling about in the mud, I'm almost deafened by the sound of machine guns and further explosions. All around me, men are shouting and screaming, most of them standing by ladders preparing to go over the top. They're going to die. All of them, they're going to die.

“
What the hell are you doing here?” shouts a British soldier, wide-eyed as he helps me get to my feet.

I open my mouth, but I don't know what to say.

He grabs me and pulls me over to one side. “Are you a nurse?” he yells over the sound of more explosions. The whole trench shakes again as another explosion lights up the sky. “What's your name?”

“
Sophie!” I shout back. “Sophie Hart! You've got to help me, I shouldn't be here!”

“
Join the club”. He looks puzzled. “Are you American?”

“
Yes!” I shout.

“
What're you doing in France?” he shouts, just as a whistle sounds. He looks over his shoulder for a moment, then back at me. “That's the one-minute signal,” he says. “We're going over the top now. You can't come, but... you can't stay here, they'll destroy you”.

There's another loud explosion, showering the trench with mud. There's nowhere for us to take cover, so we just hide our faces until the debris has stopped raining down on us. Nearby, there's another whistle.

“Thirty seconds,” says the soldier.

“
What year is it?” I shout.

“
What?”

“
What year is it?” I shout, louder than before.

He pauses. “1917,” he says. “Why, are -”

“Damn!” I shout, interrupting him. 1917. That means there's still another year before the First World War ends. I look along the trench at the soldiers – most of them so young – about to go over the top and meet almost certain death. I look at the soldier I'm standing with. “Don't go!” I shout at him. “You'll die!”

He gives me a strange look and turns away, but I grab him and pull him back toward me.

“Help!” I shout. “You've got to get me out of here!”

The whistle sounds again, and this time it doesn't stop. The other men start climbing up the ladders, shouting as they go, and the sound of gunfire intensifies. The soldier with me turns and runs over to a ladder, turning back for a moment to shout: “You never know!” He climbs the ladder, but before he's even over the top he's cut down by a storm of machine gun fire, his body falling back into the trench. I run over and look at him, but he's clearly dead, with several bullet wounds on his face and down his torso.

I run along the trench, deafened by the sound of explosions and gunfire. I have to find a way back out of here. There's no way I can stay, I have to get back to save Patrick. I can't die here, ninety years before I was even born. But as I search desperately for the door, I hear a high-pitched whining sound coming closer and closer. Turning, I look up to see something metal and dark flying through the sky, coming straight toward me. A bomb.

This is it, then. This is how I'm going to die: a bomb in the face. As it reaches me, I turn away and close my eyes tight. There's a flash of light.

12 hours earlier

(or 95 years later)

Sophie

Something rustles in the bushes behind me and I turn quickly, but there's nothing there. I swear, I'm getting more and more paranoid these days. Standing in a forest clearing, with probably not another living creature for miles, I keep thinking I hear something nearby. It's an odd sensation, as if something is walking around close to me, pacing back and forth just beyond the corner of my eye. There's nothing there, of course, but I've learned recently not to take things at face value. Although I
think
I'm alone here in the forest, there's a good chance I'm not.

I'm waiting by a small door built into an earth-bank. I've been stood here for almost an hour, ever since Patrick indicated that I should wait outside while he went through the door. I've no idea what he's doing down there, and I guess I just have to wait for him to return. Damn it, things were easier when Vincent was alive. I could ask him, and he'd – usually – fill me in. Now it's just me and Patrick and, since he never speaks, I'm just going to have to trust him.

I hear footsteps from behind the door, and finally Patrick emerges, with an old man next to him. The old man hides his eyes from the sunlight, so I guess he's been down there a while. Patrick just stands there the same as always, not saying anything and with no real expression on his face.

“
What are we doing?” I ask.

Patrick turns to look at the old man, who's wearing nothing but rags. After a moment, he turns and starts walking away.

“I think we're supposed to follow him,” the old man says, squinting in the bright sunlight. He turns to me, and a curious smile cross his lips. "I think I know who you are. Sophie Hart, I believe." He stares at me for a moment. "I expected you to be taller," he says eventually, "but I guess it doesn't really matter. I guess things can really start moving, now that Patrick's found you."

Glancing across the clearing, I see that Patrick is walking away from us.

"I'm the Lock," the old man says, before setting off after Patrick. "Come on. We might as well get going."

“
Where?” I ask, trying to decide whether I should just blindly follow them.

“
Hasn't he told you?” asks The Lock, grinning as he looks back at me. “I suppose not. Old Patrick isn't very talkative, is he? Not anymore”.

"I want to know where we're going before I agree to anything," I tell him.

“Did Vincent ever tell you about Gothos?” he asks.

“
He mentioned it,” I say. “But only in passing. It's a place, isn't it?”

“
You'll see,” says The Lock as we arrive at another door, where Patrick's waiting for us.

“
Where did all these doors come from?” I ask.

Patrick turns the handle and pulls the door open, revealing stone steps leading down into the darkness.

“Are we going down there?” I turn to Patrick, then to The Lock.

“
She's a human, Patrick,” says The Lock sternly. “You know what it means if you take a human to Gothos”.

Patrick glances at me, and then he heads through the door and starts walking down the steps.

“Are you sure about this?” asks The Lock.

I shake my head.

“Come on,” he says, almost seeming friendly for a moment. “They're waiting for us”.

“
Who?” I wait for him to answer. “Who's waiting for us? Why are we going to this place?”

“
We've been invited for dinner,” says The Lock. “I'm sure they've got the table set by now”.

I think about this for a moment. “They know we're coming?”

The Lock smiles. “They have spies everywhere,” he says. “And scouts, watching over us. Haven't you ever felt like there was someone behind you in the forest?”

He starts following Patrick down the stone steps. I glance over my shoulder. Behind us, I can see only the green expanse of forest. To be honest, however, I've often as if I'm being watched out here, and in town too, as if there are ghosts on all the roads. I used to dismiss the feeling as paranoia, but now I'm not so sure.

Astley

According to mother, I'm an ungrateful, obnoxious, foul-mouthed, idiotic little bastard who has no understanding of the world in which I live. Shows what she knows. After all, mother is hardly a paragon of virtue. She spends all day shuffling from room to room in that pathetic old gown like some kind of demented toad, slinking to the windows in order to look out over the gardens, with a gin and tonic clasped delicately in her wiry old hands. There's nothing in her demeanor or gait that implies she is a person who is even remotely qualified to pass judgment upon others. Quite where she gets her ideas from, I have no idea.

So: no, to be perfectly clear on the matter, I do
not
plan on spending eternity trapped in this monstrous, decaying old mansion with my hoary goat of a mother. No, I plan to explore the world, to sail to Manchuria and then perhaps head to India to help defend the empire. These are the things that a man should be doing in this day and age, not skulking around the shadows of Gothos like some kind of ghost. And yet, sometimes I sit at this huge dining table when there's no-one else about, and I wonder quite what the rest of the world must be like. I would so dearly like to meet someone from outside, but they never seem to arrive. There is talk, of course, and the servants are perpetually ready for visitors. Yet here we are, alone again.

I would have gone completely mad without the help of Diana. She keeps the house in order, calms mother's moods and generally makes sure that the place is civil. It's astonishing to think of how long Diana has been the head housekeeper at Gothos: certainly longer than I can comprehend. Yet she maintains the utmost level of style and grace, as if she understands perfectly that Gothos requires her service, now more than ever. Without Diana I think this entire house would fall apart. The servants would have abandoned their posts, my half-sister Gwendoline would still be roaming the corridors and playing her wretched songs on the piano, and the lights would have come much closer to the back door.

“They're coming,” Diana said to me the other night. As usual, she was loitering by the back door, watching the lights in the garden. She knows more about the lights than she admits, even if I don't think she really understands them fully.

“
You say that,” I replied. “But night after night, they are
supposedly
coming yet they don't arrive. We seem to be stuck in perpetual preparation for a party, yet the party never starts”.

“
It will,” Diana said, keeping her eyes fixed on the lights. “When our guests get here”.

“
And who are they, exactly?” I asked, becoming somewhat impatient. “Why are they so special?”

“
You will see,” Diana replied, in her usual enigmatic way.

I stared at the lights: three of them, floating at the bottom of the garden.

“They're getting bigger again,” I said after a while. “Have they eaten any more servants recently?”

“
Not recently,” said Diana. “Not since Muriel. But I expect they will be getting hungry again soon”.

“
Are you going to feed them?” I asked.

“
Of course,” she said. “It is my job”. She turned to me and gave me a smile, or at least her best attempt at a smile. “Are you volunteering?”

“
To feed them?” I asked. “Or to be fed to them?”

Diana said nothing, and merely returned to watching the lights.

Now I'm at the window alone, and the lights are still there. What do they want? And why does Diana seem to want to help them? I have seen servant girl after servant girl go down to feed them, never to return. They are all ghosts, of course, but there is still something ghoulish about the whole situation. I dread the day when we run out of servant girls and Diana has to start finding someone else to send to the bottom of the garden. She fears the lights, and she doesn't even know what they are. I know their nature, and the thought of them coming into the house terrifies me. At least, it terrifies me until I decide that the time is right.

Something feels different tonight, though. The servants are working with an extra pace that I haven't seen in a long time, not since... Well, not since the last time we had actual visitors who actually turned up, back when we played host to Mr. Wormwood's birthday party. So is the time finally upon us? Mother and Diana have spoken for so long about the night when 'he' will return to Gothos, and about the people 'he' will bring with him. It almost seemed to become a myth or a fairytale, but I can't help wondering if it might be about to come true. If it is, then God help us all, because it is hard to imagine a more dangerous endeavor than to be part of a fairytale at Gothos.

Sophie

Gothos is everything I'd expected and more. A crumbling old mansion that looks as though it was abandoned in a hurry many years ago, its many windows reflect the low evening light as we walk up the stone steps leading to the main entrance. All around us, grass lawns stretch into the distance, eventually meeting thick green forests that line the horizon in every direction. Further away, mountains rise into the sky. It's as if we're a million miles from Dedston, in a far-off country, or in a dream. I almost have to pinch myself to make sure that this is real.

When we reach the door, Patrick pushes it and finds that it's locked. Without hesitating, he steps back and shoulder-barges it open, and the three of us – Patrick, The Lock and I – step into the huge entry hallway, which is dominated by a large winding staircase coming down from the upper floor.

“Amazing,” says The Lock, looking around the room. “It hasn't changed at all, not since the -” He makes eye contact with me. “Not since the last time we were here”. He smiles. “It's as if the whole place has been frozen in time”.

As I step forward, I realize we're walking on broken glass, shards of which are covering the marble floor. In fact, looking closer, it's clear that the whole place seems to have suffered some heavy damage. The bannisters on the stairs, for example, have been hacked away in places, and when I look back at the windows I realize that many of them are broken. There's soil and bits of broken wood on the floor and, looking up, I see a hole has been smashed in the roof high above the entrance hallway. Over by one of the doors, there appears to be an old cannonball.

“What happened here?” I ask.

The Lock laughs. “You've got to expect a bit of damage,” he says, “if you have a whole war in a house”.

I want to ask what he means, but I'm not sure where to start, so instead I walk over to a doorway and look into the next room, which turns out to be a banquet hall. There's a long table, parts of which appear to have been smashed to pieces, and a chandelier has crashed down at the far end of the room. It looks like there's been a huge battle in here, with cracks and damage evident all over the walls.

“
Come on,” says The Lock.

I turn to see that he and Patrick have started to walk up the stairs. Slowly, I turn and follow them, and soon we're up on the first floor and we're walking along a corridor. There are doors off to either side, all of them closed. Again, it looks as if there's been some serious damage done here, with plaster having been knocked off parts of the building's interior. There's even what looks like blood smeared on one part of the wall.

We stop at a door.

“
I suppose this is your room,” says The Lock, looking at me.

“
I have a room?”

The Lock nods. “You'll need to get ready for dinner,” he says. “There should be some clothes in the wardrobe”. He looks me up and down, apparently not too impressed by my jeans and shirt. “It might be best to make a little effort tonight, try to fit in”.

“Fit in?” I ask. “Fit in with what?” I look at Patrick. “What's happening here? I thought...” I look back along the empty corridor. “I thought there'd be someone here”.

“
Go into your room,” says The Lock. “Get ready for dinner. At sundown, everything will be ready. The people of Gothos prefer not to show themselves until the evening is ready to commence”.

There's a click. I look over to see Patrick disappearing into another room, pushing the door shut behind him. I turn to The Lock, who smiles and goes to another door, pushing it open, going inside and closing it. Now I'm standing in the corridor outside 'my room', and I'm alone. I have half a mind to go exploring, but something tells me I'm at a disadvantage here. There must be something in this house, or why did we bother coming here?

I put my hand on the door handle, but at that moment there's a banging sound from nearby. I look over. The sound seemed to come from a cupboard a little further along the corridor. It was just a small bang, though, like something falling off a shelf. Still, it's odd that it would happen just as we arrive.

Entering 'my room', I shut the door behind me. The room itself is faded and rundown and, like the rest of the mansion, the walls are cracked. Looking around, I can see that this was once an impressive place, but it apparently got left to rot many years ago.

On the floor by the door, there's a wardrobe. It seems to have toppled over and from the direction in which it's fallen, I can't help but feel it had been used to barricade the door at some point, only to be forced aside. Fortunately it has fallen with the doors facing up, so I open it and find a bunch of dresses inside. Pulling them out and onto the large double bed on the other side of the room, I realize that these are very, very old dresses, all faded yellows and browns. Definitely not my kind of thing, and I'm pretty sure I'll stick with wearing what I've got on now.

I glance over at the window, which like most other windows in this place has some broken panes of glass. Outside, it's getting darker by the minute as the sun starts to dip below the horizon. It'll be sundown soon, and then... what?

Somewhere in the distance, there's a loud, resonant sound like someone hitting a giant piece of metal. I go to the door and open it, looking out into the corridor. At that moment, the door to The Lock's room opens and he emerges wearing a pretty decent-looking old-fashioned tuxedo.

“
You haven't changed,” he says.

“
Do I really need to?” I ask tentatively, kind of knowing what his answer will be.

“
You came all this way,” he says. “It might seem churlish to suddenly get funny about a dress”.

“
Fine,” I say, and I go back into the room, slamming the door shut behind me. I grab the first dress from the bed and hold it up to take a look. It's like something from a hundred years ago, faded and worn. Am I really supposed to wear this? I hold it up against myself and realize it's a pretty good fit. Damn it, I'm going to look pretty stupid in this. I'm not sure I've ever worn such a frilly thing in my life...