Chapter 7
The Legend Of The Beast
When Oz arrived home that afternoon, dispirited over Ruff 's moods, Mrs Chambers was poring over yet another set of brilliant paint charts. Ominously, Rowena Hilditch's large handbag hung over the backrest of a chair, but much to Oz's relief, there was no sign of her in the kitchen. His mother looked up as he entered, and proffered a careworn smile.
“Hi, Oz,” she sang. “How was school?”
“All right,” Oz said in a noncommittal sort of way, a ploy that usually discouraged further inquiry. He made for the fridge, but Mrs Chambers met him halfway for a hug and then held him at arm's length for inspection. She looked very earnest.
“A policewoman rang me about that little Skinner boy,” she said.
Oz's brow crinkled on hearing this;
Skinner
and
little
appearing in the same sentence was such an unusual combination, it threw him momentarily. Mrs Chambers misinterpreted the furrows as pained shock.
“Poor you. I know he's not one of your favourite people, but it must have been terrible hearing about it at school like that.”
“Yeah,” Oz said, and went to the fridge to fetch a glass of ice-cold milk. When he turned back, his mother was still standing where he'd left her, but now she was holding a charred oblong wooden box and smiling. “I've been sorting out some of the junk that survived the fire. I'm trying to decide what goes back into the basement and what gets thrownâ¦and I found this.”
Oz read the name
Evan Evans
engraved on the lid of the box. “What is it?”
“Open it. I wanted you to have it when you were old enough. I thought it might cheer you up.”
Oz put his milk down and put the box on the kitchen table. Sprung brass clasps held the box shut. Oz flicked them open and lifted the lid carefully. Inside were three medals, pinned on a bed of cushioned blue silk.
The first had a red ribbon above a funny-shaped bronze cross. The second was silver, with the head of man on one side and writing on the back, its ribbon red, too, but with one blue stripe running down the middle. The last was very shiny, with a gold-and-green ribbon and a very fussy design:
République française
written on a blue circle around the head of what looked like an ancient Greek.
“Wow. So who was Evan Evans, Mum?”
“My great-uncle on my dad's side. In other words, my great-grandfather's brother.” She sighed. “And I'm ashamed to say that I'd completely forgotten about this box and what it contained until I dug it out from the box room this afternoon.”
At that precise moment, Rowena Hilditch breezed in wearing some sort of cinched jacket with lots of straps over a long flared skirt, all of which gave her a slightly menacing Victorian look. She peered at the contents of the box over Oz's shoulder and snorted.
“Little boys playing soldiers? Paid for with violence and death and now probably worth no more than a fiver at a jumble sale.”
“It's not what they're worth that's importantâ” Mrs Chambers began.
“So, Oz,” Rowena Hilditch said, steamrollering over Mrs Chambers' objections, “what's this I hear about shenanigans at your school? One of your friends attacked?” She made staring eyes at Oz. “Is he badly hurt?”
“Bad enough to put him in hospital. What's worse is that they found my hat nearby, so I'm the prime suspect. At least, I am as far as Miss Swinson is concerned, anyway.”
Rowena Hilditch tutted and lowered herself into a chair. “Gwen told me what happened. But an attack on a thirteenyear-old⦠I mean, what is this world coming to?”
“Don't they have any idea at all about who did it?” Mrs Chambers asked gravely.
Oz shook his head. “Nope. 'Course, there are weird rumors flying about, mainly dreamed up by Tracy Roper.”
“What rumours?” Mrs Chambers asked.
“Whoever it was that found Skinner disturbed the attacker and said they heard animal noises. So of course, Tracy Roper tells everyone it's the Beast of Seabourne, doesn't she.”
“The Beast of Seabourne,” repeated Mrs Chambers, her voice loaded with derision.
“Yeah,” Oz laughed. There was the noise of a chair scraping on tiles. From behind the kitchen table where she'd been sitting, Rowena Hilditch lurched to her feet. “Tell me more,” she said, her eyes burning with interest.
Mrs Chambers laughed. “Oh, Rowena, Tracy Roper is the class gossipâ”
Rowena Hilditch's scorching glance cut Mrs Chambers off in mid-sentence. “But I have a professional interest in these things, Gwen,” she breathed.
“Of course,” Mrs Chambers said. “I forgot. It's just that I'm not sure Oz wants to talk any more about it. He might be a bit upset.”
Oz watched this exchange from behind his raised glass of milk before Rowena Hilditch turned her hungry, green-lidded gaze on him. Oz's mind was whirling. He'd always considered the Beast of Seabourne to be nothing more than a silly story. A bit like the Beast of Dartmoor or the Hound of the Baskervilles. However, despite not trusting this woman as far as he could spit, she
had
written a book on the subject. Maybe this was his chance to find out what she really wanted here at Penwurt.
He swallowed a mouthful of milk and said, “No, it's all right, Mum. Since Rowena knows such a lot about it⦠I mean, I could go back and tell Tracy Roper I talked to someone who was an actual expert. That should shut her up.”
Rowena Hilditch positively purred. “Excellent.” Her eyes narrowed suddenly. “I know, how about we do a swap? I'd really love to see the orphanage properly. Site of the Bunthorpe encounter and all that. You give me the tour, and I'll dish the dirt on the Beast of Seabourne.”
Oz looked at his mother, who shrugged.
“Okay,” Oz said. “Why not? Oh, and can I keep the medals, Mum?”
“They're yours,” Mrs Chambers said.
Oz finished his milk, wiped his mouth on a paper towel, and said to Rowena Hilditch, “So, when do you want to start?”
“Lead on,” she replied, smacking her raw-liver lips.
Oz took her through the door that led into the freshly painted atrium and up the wide staircase past the weird avian chandelier to the first floor. Behind him, his guest was cooing. “This place has such a potent atmosphere. And your mum tells me you know everything about it?”
“I know a bit,” Oz said. “But Caleb's the expert⦔
“Maybe, but I bet you know as much as him, really.” Her voice dripped syrup.
“Well, I know that in the mid-eighteenth century, there was a barn on this siteâ”
“Bunthorpe barn. I have a whole chapter planned for
Supernatural Seabourne
,” Rowena Hilditch said.
“Then you know that the barn burned down, and the land was bought by a squire who built the house on the same site and joined it on to this bit, which was the old Abbot's house. So, this bit's loads older. Sixteenth century.”
“And by the end of the nineteenth century, the whole place became an orphanage. Fascinating,” Rowena Hilditch said, stepping onto the first-floor landing. From here, she could look down into the hall and up to the ceiling of the atrium above the next floor. She stood with her hands on the balustrade, drinking in the building. There were other things Oz could have told her. Like the fact that one Daniel Morsman, who had grown up in the orphanage, ended up buying it 150 years after the artefacts had appeared and been conveniently forgotten. Morsman went on to become a businessman and explorer and had been so successful, he'd come back and bought the old house, renovated it, and passed it on eventually to Great-Aunt Bessy, who had bequeathed in to Oz's dad. It was Morsman too who began taking a real interest in the Bunthorpe encounter and who researched it. So much so that the artefacts became known as “Morsman's artefacts.”
Oz knew this because he'd read the research papers and articles his dad had written about it, but those snippets were not for Rowena Hilditch's ears. Not in a million years.
“Uh, do you want to go up to the dorm?” Oz asked.
“Why don't we start with where your friends were locked in with that woman, umm, what was her name again?”
“Lucy Bishop,” Oz said.
“That's her. Ended up in an asylum, I hear.”
The padlock on the door that led to the old classrooms was ajar; the decorators had used one of the rooms for storage. Even so, the door creaked dramatically when Oz pushed it open. He flicked on the light to show a long corridor with several closed doors leading off it. Oz felt a tiny echo of memory tweak his insides in recollection of that Halloween night when he, Ellie, and Ruff had hesitated on this very spot, listening for what he'd thought had been ghostly footsteps.
He walked along until he came to a door that was new and freshly painted, a replacement for the one the firemen had broken down to free Ellie and Ruff.
“It's this one,” he said, and pushed opened the door. There was an even stronger smell of paint and turpentine inside the room. The hidden panel leading to the passage behind was sealed shut. Oz felt a tingle of relief. At least he wouldn't have to take her in there.
Through the window on the opposite wall, Oz could see the trees in the garden swaying in the breeze, their branches sparsely covered by new spring growth. It was all so different from the last time he'd been in there with Ellie and Ruff. So very different.
“So, this is where they were trapped,” Rowena Hilditch said, her nostrils flaring as she inhaled the atmosphere and took in the dustsheets covering the old furniture. “And all the while, poor old you were getting tied up in the basement.”
Oz didn't need reminding of that. He decided to change the subject. “So, can I ask you about the Beast of Seabourne now?”
“Ask away,” she said, running her fingers over the oak panels and inspecting the dust they picked up.
“It is just a legend, right? I mean there's no real truth to it?”
Rowena Hilditch pivoted, her brow furrowing. “There's always some truth in even the most obscure of legends, Oz. The facts are that, in the eighteenth century, several people became victims of the Beast, even some children. They found a few mutilated corpses, mainly over towards Tonhampton.” She picked at a hangnail, plainly pausing for effect. “I've seen the doctor's reports. They've given me special access at the museum in Seabourne. All very unpleasant. Unpleasant and gory in the extreme. Of course, Tonhampton didn't look then like it does now. There were no estates or shops; it was all field and forest. And there were sightings. Several eyewitnesses reported seeing a hunched shape silhouetted against the evening sky. A misshapen, four-legged thing that would sometimes rear up on its hind legs at the edge of the woods.”
Oz watched her. It was like she was repeating words she'd already composed. He had to remind himself she probably had. “So, what do you think it could have been?”
Rowena Hilditch perched a hip on the windowsill. She seemed, to Oz, to be enjoying herself immensely as she surveyed her surroundings. “What do
I
think it was?” she murmured, letting her gaze drift lazily down towards Oz again. “I think that a lot of people would like to believe that the murder of innocents is a modern phenomenon. But I think that predators have been within our midst for a very long time. So long as there are sheep, there will be wolves.”
“So, you think that the Beast of Seabourne was actually a person?”
“Yes and no. A being that perhaps was not sure if he really was a personâ¦or something else altogether.”
“You mean, like heâ¦or sheâ¦was possessed?” Oz frowned.
Rowena Hilditch's eyes opened wide in a challenge to Oz's sceptical expression. “Is it so difficult to believe? After all, isn't that exactly what happened here?”
“What do you mean?” Oz asked. Her perfume wafted across to him, and he wrinkled his nose involuntarily. The turpentine and paint stood no chance at all against it.
“Lucy Bishop has been labelled as mad, by all accounts.”
“Well, she wasn't exactly normal,” Oz said, choosing his words carefully. The official report on what had happened at Penwurt the night that Ellie and Ruff had been locked in with Lucy Bishop had left out certain details that the three of them, together with his mother and Caleb, had decided were best left unsaid.
“And then there was her brother, Edward.”
Oz stared at her. She seemed to know an awful lot about what had happened here. Edward Bishop had stalked Ellie, Ruff, and him in People's Park, and he had been in this very room with Lucy Bishop when they'd found her. Memory of his feral, polecat eyes still haunted Oz, and it must have shown.
“Exactly,” she said in response to Oz's silence, her eyes glinting with barely restrained excitement, her gummy smile wide. “What if there was something here, in this house? Something that took hold of Lucy Bishop and her brother?”
“But why them?”
“Some people are conduits, Oz. They have gifts which allow them to communicate with those entities that seek to contact us from beyond the veil.” She was looking at him with an odd kind of hunger in her expression, but her voice had taken on a certain lilt again, as if she were reciting from a well-remembered bit of script. “Others attract attention but are unable to cope with the demands made upon them. It could easily drive someone mad.”
Oz didn't say anything.
“You have never felt anything, have you, Oz?” Rowena Hilditch oozed out the question, her voice thick.
“Ruff hid in the cupboard on the landing outside my bedroom once and jumped out at me. That was pretty scary.”
She didn't smile. There was a long, silent pause that hung in the thick air until she said, “And what about your father? Did he ever feel anything? Did he ever say anything to you?”
“No,” Oz replied. He didn't like where this was going. “He never said anything about seeing spirits or ghosts here.”