Dark Heart Forever

www.hodderchildrens.co.uk

Copyright © 2010 Lee Monroe

First published in Great Britain in 2010

by Hodder Children’s Books

This ebook edition published in 2011

The right of Lee Monroe to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

All rights reserved. Apart from any use permitted under UK copyright law, this publication may only be reproduced, stored or transmitted, in any form, or by any means with prior permission in writing from the publishers or in the case of reprographic production in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency and may not be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN 978 1 444 90489 5

Typeset in Berkeley Book by Avon DataSet Ltd,

Bidford on Avon, Warwickshire

Hodder Children’s Books

a division of Hachette Children’s Books

338 Euston Road, London NW1 3BH

An Hachette UK company

www.hachette.co.uk

For Molly R.

B
ranches whipped my face as I ran and my cheek stung where it had been lashed. I pushed forward, warm blood on my lips, my heart thudding faster in my chest. Above me, the night clouds slid uneasily over the pale moon. Beyond me I heard the crunch of boots on snow and glimpsed the dark figure winding through the dense trees. I was so close I could cry, but he slipped quickly out of sight. I should have called out. But the unknown kept me silent.

As I reached the clearing, a spot I knew well at the base of the hill, I heard the sound of a truck groaning slightly along the mountain road. I came to a halt and then stood, panting, to see nothing but the black curving tarmac and the half-moon in the sky.

Whoever he was, he had disappeared.

Suddenly the energy, the force that had kept me running through the woods evaporated. I stood, freezing and defeated, and tilted my head back to look up at the sky. Midnight blue. No clouds now. Just a bitter, unforgiving night.

A sound behind me – the snap of a twig – made me jerk. But as I turned to look, something heavy gripped my shoulder and I stopped. My face was still but my eyes darted down to see long pale fingers resting on my collarbone.

‘Don’t move,’ someone whispered. ‘And don’t be frightened.’ The owner of the hand gently turned me to look at him. Large eyes, wide mouth, short brown hair. I knew him. I knew this boy.

But we had never met.

‘Jane,’ said the boy, his hand, surprisingly warm, holding mine. ‘Please. I would never hurt you.’

‘Who are you?’ As I spoke my breath clouded in the cold. ‘What am I doing here?’ I had no recollection of why I had come into these woods.

‘You followed me. You have been dreaming about me for a long time and now you know I’m real … Well,’ he gave a dry laugh, ‘almost real.’

‘Please,’ I said weakly, as though I had not been in pursuit of him. ‘Just let me go home.’

‘Jane. You are home.’ He let go of my hand and put both of his around my face, drawing it closer to him.

Green eyes, and skin like a child’s, but the bones in his cheeks belonged to a man. His face was gentle, though in his pupils there was something alert and wild. I was so cold I couldn’t move, except for my hands shaking and my heart thumping.

Watching my confusion, he stroked my cheeks with his fingertips, and my head lolled, soothed all of a sudden. Then gradually I felt aware of the rest of my body, my legs, my hips, my breasts.

‘This is where your story begins,’ he whispered. ‘With me, in this place.’

And as I listened I knew that here, in this moment, it was true.

Today was my sixteenth birthday, and my story had begun.

‘J
ane?’

Something was shaking me.

‘Jane. Wake up!’

I jerked awake. Opening my eyes, I saw golden plaits and gingham pyjamas.

‘Dot,’ I said grumpily, ‘what day is it?’

My nine-year-old sister tilted her head, her large, blue eyes regarding me seriously. She wrinkled her nose. ‘Saturday, stupid. Your birthday!’ She put both hands on my bed and levered herself up to perch next to me. ‘They’re talking about you downstairs.’

‘Already?’ I said, still sleepy. ‘What are they saying today?’

Dot sighed a little melodramatically. ‘Mum is worried about you getting up in the night, opening windows and doors.’ She nestled in close to me. ‘Last night you left footprints on the carpet in the hall.’

‘Oh.’ I rested my head back. ‘I sleepwalked.’

Dot nodded happily. ‘I think it’s cool.’ She fiddled with the silver chain on my wrist. ‘Where do you go, Jane? Aren’t you scared?’

‘I don’t know and I don’t know,’ I said, pressing my cheek against her blonde head. ‘I’m kind of asleep … you know?’

Dot giggled. ‘Well, I think you’re brave,’ she said. ‘Don’t listen to them.’

‘What else does Mum say?’ I asked casually.

‘That maybe you should go to boarding school,’ Dot replied sadly. ‘Because you’re too insolar.’

‘What?’ I prodded Dot’s arm. ‘
Insolar?
’

‘You don’t have enough friends.’ Dot turned to face me. She slid her arms around my waist and kissed my cheek. ‘But I told her you’ve got me.’

‘Right.’ I smiled. ‘I think the word is
insular
.’

‘Like I said.’ Dot buried her face in my chest. ‘Insolar.’

‘I’m sixteen. I don’t have to go to school any more. Not if I don’t want to.’

‘You’re lucky.’ Dot scrambled to sit up. She examined my face. ‘What’s that?’ She pointed at my cheek, pushing my hair to the side. ‘You’ve got a scratch. It wasn’t there yesterday.’

I stared at her and put my hand up to my face, feeling the rough, puckered skin.

‘I must have done it in my sleep,’ I said cautiously, remembering the trees and intense cold and then … warmth like I’d never felt before. And someone—

‘You’d better cover it up.’ Dot broke my thoughts, pulling my dark, curly hair over my face, covering the wound. ‘Or Mum will start locking your bedroom door at night.’

‘She fusses too much.’ I said, half wishing that I could be locked away. For the few weeks leading up to my birthday I’d been having these dreams. At first I’d had no real memory of what happened in them, but lately … lately I had been remembering more, waking exhausted and sometimes finding inexplicable bruises and scratches.

‘I’m hungry.’ Dot slithered off the bed. ‘Breakfast time!’

Downstairs it was a typically unceremonious Jonas birthday breakfast. My mother doesn’t believe in spoiling. She and Dad were buying me a car for my seventeenth, so this year was some money in a bank account. Dot, bless her, had bought me a book token and Dad had kissed me on the cheek and got back to tapping out numbers on his calculator. Hot topic of the day I was not. The mood this morning was sober.

‘Happy birthday to me,’ I muttered, pushing rabbit food around in a bowl.

‘Old Murray’s cancelled his commission,’ said my father, to no one in particular.

‘Oh God.’ My mother sighed, pushing away her unfinished yoghurt and banana. ‘Not another one.’

Dad nodded, brushing his beard with a napkin. ‘But we’ll be fine, Anna. I have Mrs Benjamin’s kitchen table and Pete’s staircase. We won’t starve.’

Mum picked up her bowl and pushed her chair back, shooing our Irish wolfhound, Bobby, out of the way. She walked into the kitchen. ‘But it’s drying up, Jack,’ she called back. ‘No one’s got any money, and they’re not coming up this far.’ She started putting on rubber gloves. ‘Mrs Caffrey in the post office says everyone thinks this little mountain is cursed.’

My dad winked at my sister and me. ‘I’m a carpenter,’ he said. ‘I’ll always get work.’