Alchemy, Book Two of the Mercian Trilogy (17 page)

The boy looked down, as mesmerised as a spectator by his own murder, as Will took his small knife and drew a neat incision up the inside of his forearm.

Not a drop fell to the floor, Will locking his mouth on to the iron richness of the wound, greedily drinking in the warmth. The sense of nourishment was instant, the boy’s life flooding in through his blood, filling the void at the centre of Will’s own being.

As he moved to the other arm, he looked up at the boy’s freckled face, his reddish-brown hair. He was still staring at his own arm in a state of mild confusion, slowly pulling his gaze away to look at Will. The boy’s soul was still there, Will was certain of it, a presence behind the eyes that seemed untouched by the slow death of the body it inhabited. Will believed it to be so, and had to believe it to make his own existence bearable.

Once the boy was dead, Will pulled the sleeves down on his top to ensure no stray drops of blood fell when he moved the body. Then he took the boy’s bag into the gift shop, replaced the items, straightened up the mess he’d made here and there.

Finally he toured the house. The only other thing he could see that was missing or moved was the sabre – he was certain he’d put it back, but in his starved and desperate state he’d perhaps left it in the tunnels or in the cellars. He searched for the point of entry too. There were no broken windows or locks, and no bike outside that he could see, but he found a door that was open, which was better still – it meant there was nothing to suggest anyone else had been in the house.

Once he was certain everything was secured, Will returned to the body. The brief sense of completion that came with feeding had already subsided, and now, as he looked at the boy’s wide-eyed stare, he felt only a mild feeling of regret – no life, thought Will, could be so worthless as to be ended like this.

He picked up the torch and turned it off, putting it in the empty bag which he threw over his shoulder. He lifted the boy then, lighter than he’d expected, and carried him through to the library. He opened the first secret door, put the body on the floor and opened the wall to the steps.

He carried the body through the labyrinth to a point as far distant as he could find from the house, and laid it there, conscious that it would probably mummify rather than decompose in the air down there. He walked away, but turned and looked at the boy once more.

It was true he had been caught in an act of crime, something that throughout most of Will’s long existence would have resulted in him being hanged and thrown into a common grave. But Will still felt he deserved more dignity than this, his body left in the open in a hidden tunnel.

The floor underneath was stone, and burying him in the parkland or woods above ran too much risk of the grave being found. Will went back to the house and down to the cellars, some of which were crammed with more materials than anyone would miss.

Over the next couple of hours he collected and transported three wooden crates, knocking all but two of the ends out of them, using the leftover wood to nail them together. He took a dust sheet, wrapped the body inside it, then placed it in the makeshift coffin.

Once that was done, he went to the large cellar that was used for storing unwanted furniture and ornaments. Each piece had a tag attached to it with a catalogue number, but Will doubted it was ever checked. On one of his previous wanderings he’d spotted a large crucifix for mounting on a wall and he took it back to the tunnels now, and placed it on top of the coffin.

He stood before the boy and thought for a moment, unsure whether he should say anything. He had seen funerals take place, but had never afforded any of his
previous victims this courtesy. Nor had he actually attended a funeral since his own childhood.

In the end, Will offered one simple line of prayer, the only words he could think of that meant anything, that he hoped might one day be offered for him.

“Grant unto him eternal peace.”

Will bowed his head, left the labyrinth and headed across the park. He felt stronger now, more firmly fixed to the world, but his spirits fell when he realised how long he’d been at the house. The evening was almost at an end and the Dangrave House common room looked deserted at first sight.

As Will reached his normal position he was able to see the only two people in that school who mattered to him in one way or another. Eloise was sitting on one of the sofas, reading a book. Nearby, Marcus Jenkins was playing chess, his opponent out of view beyond the frame of the window.

Eloise looked as beautiful as he’d ever seen her. She was reading, but looked distracted, and every now and then she glanced towards the window. She didn’t look directly at him, just towards the window, in the general direction of where she knew Will usually stood.

The only thing Will didn’t know was what she thought as she looked out, seeing only a reflection of the common room, but imagining the wintry park beyond.
Was she hoping for his return, worrying about him, or was she looking with dread in her heart, wishing he would disappear from her life as suddenly as he had walked into it two months before?

Whatever the answer, he doubted he would find out tonight. She closed the book and left the room, bidding goodnight to Marcus and the other boy. Will decided to wait for a while, but he knew somehow that she wouldn’t come out, and not just because he had lied and said he wouldn’t be back from the city until late.

As he stood there, he glanced up at the darkened window high above, realising that for the first time in many days, no one was observing him from up there. He didn’t want to think of the obvious conclusion – he’d also told Chris that he wouldn’t be back until late in the night, so perhaps word had got back to Wyndham’s spies that they could take a night off from their duties.

His attention was drawn downwards again by movement in the common room. Marcus’s opponent, his regular one, appeared as he prepared to leave. There seemed to be a brief discussion about putting the board away, but Marcus must have offered to do it because his friend left.

Marcus took his time placing the pieces back into the box, then putting the box and the board on a set of shelves on the far side of the common room. It looked
for a moment as if he might simply leave then, but he stood for a moment, turned and looked directly at Will.

It unnerved Will no less than it had the first time he’d done it, and he took a step back before correcting himself. How Marcus always knew he was there was a mystery, but it was Marcus he’d come to see. Will walked forward until he was close enough to the window to be visible.

Again Marcus immediately understood the significance of Will appearing like that and put a hand up, telling Will to wait for a moment. Marcus left the room and Will retreated back into the shadows. A few minutes later, Marcus came out of the side door and walked towards Will with surprising speed.

Even before he’d reached Will, Marcus said, “What happened to Eloise?” His breath plumed out into the freezing air.

“What do people think happened to her?”

Marcus stopped a short distance from Will, momentarily deflected from his course by Will’s question.

“No one thinks anything’s happened to her. But it has, I can tell, and she didn’t come out to see you tonight.”

“She didn’t think I’d be here – I returned early unexpectedly.” He looked once more towards the room on the top floor, still unable to feel the watcher’s eyes
on him, which was probably all the better for Marcus. “You’re right though. There are tunnels under the old abbey. We were searching them when Wyndham used his powers to move the walls around us. Eloise became trapped in a chamber, and before I could rescue her, Wyndham made her see things, horrific things.”

Marcus didn’t seem to doubt any of the events that had happened, but said, “How do you know it was Wyndham?”

“There are many factors pointing to him – I have no doubt about it.”

Marcus nodded, thinking to himself, idly stroking his scar.

“Is it because I told him about you looking in the maze?”

“Perhaps.”

“I need to be more careful about the things I tell him. Because I meant what I said about not hurting her – I won’t.”

“What about me?”

Marcus laughed and said, “You? What do you think I could do that’d hurt you?” He shivered. He’d come out in just the clothes he was wearing indoors and the cold was starting to eat its way through him.

“You should go inside,” said Will. “But I wanted to ask you, and I understand if your loyalty prevents you
from answering, did you ever visit Wyndham’s house?”

Marcus took a moment, then said, “No, I can tell you that. I did, but it was night-time and the car he took me in had blacked-out windows. He took me in the same car when he brought me here and that time the windows were just tinted, so it must be something he does.”

“So you don’t know where the house is?”

Marcus paused, thinking the question over before responding.

“I don’t believe you’re everything he’s said about you, I don’t even know if I believe any of it, but it’s true what you said about loyalty. And like I said, he’s paying my way. You can’t expect me to …”

“No, I don’t, and I quite understand. I hope only that you’ll change your mind at some point. For now I’ll bid you goodnight.”

Marcus nodded again as if acknowledging that Will had backed down on a point of principle. He walked away, but stopped after a few paces and said, “I’ll tell you one thing about him though. He grew up around here somewhere, but it wasn’t recent.”

“What makes you say that?”

“When we came here the first time, he said to me he knew this house when he was young. I asked if he went to school here. He was kind of daydreaming, you know, and he said no, it hadn’t been a school then, but he’d
known the family that lived here. Well, it’s been a school for over a hundred and fifty years.” Marcus gave a little laugh, taking some pleasure in being able to share his deductions with someone. “So either Mr Wyndham’s not all there in the head, or he’s got more in common with you than you realise.”

He raised his hand in a wave, just as he’d done that night by the river, then turned and walked back into the school. Will watched him go, intrigued and confused by the things Marcus had told him. How could Wyndham be so old if he was a normal living human, and how could it be that he had known the Dangraves?

Most of all, he wondered, if he and Wyndham had so much shared history in this city and its surrounds, was it possible that they had encountered each other before? Could that be the real key to Wyndham’s determination to destroy him?

M
y journey home took longer and was more troublesome than I would have liked, and it was early in the year 1800 when I finally reached the city. I took rooms in an inn on the first night, given that I arrived late and that the city was shrouded in fog
.

Beyond that, I had thought to return home, but as I lay in bed that first night, I came to think that I no longer had a home. Though I had grown up there, I had failed to grow old. I had become a stranger this last half-century, and not only because of my continued absence
.

The next afternoon, with the fog still hanging densely over a frozen landscape, I had my coachman take me the five miles or so to the home of my childhood. And when I reached the house and asked for Lord Bowcastle, I didn’t even know if I would be met by my brother or by his son, such had been the lack of communication between us in recent years
.

When asked who was calling, I told the servant it was a distant cousin, and was then taken through to
the library where I found my brother, now seventy-five years old, sitting in front of the fire with a book resting on his lap. I was invited to sit, drinks were poured, we were left alone
.

He smiled at me, in some confusion, and said, “Phillip Wyndham, Peckham said, so you must be a cousin through the line of my father’s younger brothers, but I thought …”

I could have wept for he was still quite recognisably my brother, the brother who’d always been so much stronger than I, so much bigger too for most of our shared history, yet he was so frail now, an old man in decline. Only his eyes retained their youthful vigour but that only made it all the more upsetting
.

“Tom, it’s me, Phillip. I am not your cousin, I am your brother.”

He smiled and said, “You look very much like him. You’re his son?”

“No, I am your brother, returned from my travels at last.”

“But you haven’t changed at all.” He was hopeful for a moment, then suspicious as he said, “You’re a charlatan, sir, if you say that. You cannot be my brother – he would be a man of sixty-six now. You look less than forty.”

“My journey wasn’t in vain, Tom. I have learned
things I never dreamt of learning, and not least amongst them was this, the ability to hold back time.” I could see that he still struggled to believe me, so I said, “You have a scar on the outside of your left forearm where one of our dogs bit you – a pointer. I was six, you were fifteen. Our father wanted to beat the dog, but you said it was you who should be beaten for you’d antagonised the poor animal. He laughed and said then let that be a lesson in itself. Why do I remember this when I was so young? Because it was I who antagonised the dog that day, because you incurred the bite in trying to separate us. Our father was a kind man, I don’t think he ever beat either of us, but you took the blame for me all the same.”

My brother’s eyes glistened with tears as he said, “But how can this be?”

I explained the events of the last half-century as best I could and then we reminisced for a little while, and he told me of the deaths of our parents. And as darkness was falling, he said, “Is it too late for me, to learn what you know?”

“It is, Tom,” I said
.

“I know it, yet I would give you my title and all I possess in exchange for your knowledge.”

I believed him, but even if it had been within my power to share what I knew, it takes a certain type of
person to make the sacrifices required of this existence
.