The Mystery of Wickworth Manor (10 page)

‘Wow!’ Paige said. ‘That’s amazing. What is it?’

‘A huge wicker ball. How are they going to get it out?’

‘Hit it with a giant tennis racquet?’

Everyone else in the group was busy opening drawers and pulling out supplies. They knew exactly what was going on. Paige dived straight in, asking quick questions of the people on either side. Curtis watched her return with two armfuls of tissue paper. She thrust it towards him. ‘You’ll need this.’

‘What are we doing?’

‘Making the earth.’

Oh. The wicker was just the skeleton, the earth’s crust, waiting for tissue paper continents to be glued on. He wondered for a second whether he could persuade them to make Pangaea, the lost continent, the way things were right at the beginning. Then he sighed. It was going to be hard enough to make the world as it really was without bringing ancient history into it.

‘I saw the World last night, do you remember?’ Paige shoved his tissue out of the way and dropped scissors and glue on to the table. ‘In the cards?’

‘Yes.’ Curtis reached to get his tissue paper back.

‘I thought it might mean something about the Boy travelling. I didn’t think it meant this. Do you want to make a bit of the Atlantic with me?’

‘He might have travelled. I went to the library yesterday. I didn’t have a chance to tell you. I was too busy –’

‘Ignoring me?’ Paige interrupted.

‘Well, yes, I suppose so. Sorry.’

‘It’s all right. I was ignoring you too. Pass me some blue.’

Curtis pushed the pile of paper back towards her. ‘He might have come from the West Indies. Even Africa, maybe. He might have been a slave.’

‘Slaves? In Britain? I didn’t think there were any here. I thought it was, I dunno, a foreign thing.’

‘Yes, there were slaves here. I want to find out if he was one.’

‘Were your family slaves? Do you think that’s why he’s trying to communicate with us?’

Curtis turned to face Paige. She was busy overlapping paper and hadn’t noticed that he’d stopped. ‘What?’ he asked.

‘You know. He might see you as a kindred spirit, or something.’

‘My mum’s parents are from Nigeria.’

‘Were they slaves?’

‘Of course not. If anything, their family might have been slave traders. Some Nigerians were ages ago.’

‘Ooh,’ Paige looked up. Her eyes shone. ‘So your family might have sold him into slavery. He might be after revenge.’

‘You are completely mental, do you know that?’ Curtis picked up a piece of tissue paper and started hacking at it with his scissors. ‘You’re a classic fantasist. You don’t let facts get in the way of your vision of the world, do you? I shouldn’t be encouraging you. I should get you some professional help.’

‘Are you teasing me again?’

‘No.’

‘Oh.’

Neither of them said anything for a while. Paige clipped carefully; she was making a pattern that reminded Curtis of fish scales. His was more, well, avant garde.

‘You’re doing it wrong,’ Paige said eventually.

‘I’m making Art. You’re just doing craft.’

‘Yours looks a mess.’

‘It’s meant to. It represents climate chaos, over-fishing, pollution, that sort of thing.’

‘You just don’t know how to cut tissue paper properly.’

‘I do, but I’m choosing not to.’

‘Now who’s the fantasist? So, how are we going to find out? I mean whether he was a slave or not?’

Curtis put down his scissors. ‘I don’t know. More research, I suppose. We need to go back to the library.’

‘Libraries are boring,’ Paige said. ‘I’ve got a much better idea.’

Chapter 21

‘Libraries aren’t boring,’ Curtis said. ‘The one here is nice.’

‘Nice? You’re weird, you know that? Listen, after this we’ve got a break. Then dinner. Then canoeing. I’ve got an idea we can try at breaktime.’

‘Why do I feel worried? Oh yes, because your last brilliant idea saw me standing in Mrs Burton-Jones’s room apologising.’

‘Don’t be like that. This one isn’t going to get us into any trouble.’

Curtis picked up their pile of snipped paper and carried it towards the centre of the room, where Mr Appleton was supervising the gluing. Paige followed.

‘What’s your idea?’ he asked.

She grinned. She knew he’d come around. ‘Dowsing.’

‘What?’

‘My mum uses it when she’s lost something. What you do is, you take two sticks and you hold them in front of you. Then, when you’re close to the thing you’re looking for, they cross.’

‘Oh, I know. People do it when they’re looking for water. Actually, I think there is some kind of scientific basis for that, it’s something to do with ions –’

Oh, Curtis was so annoying. Paige sighed dramatically. ‘Yes. But it doesn’t have to be for water. You can look for anything that way.’

Paige dipped a fat brush into a pot of PVA glue. Instead of painting the tissue paper, she blobbed a bit on the back of her hand. When it dried, she could peel it off like loose skin. Cool.

‘And what exactly are we looking for?’ Curtis asked, taking the brush from her.

‘Hey, I was enjoying that.’

‘What do you intend to dowse for?’

She thought about the twisting white mist she’d seen near the bathroom last night. Her face became more serious. ‘Well. Ghosts. They want to tell us something. I can feel it. We just have to make sure we’re listening. It’s all about allowing yourself to be open to the signals.’

‘I’m not a mobile phone mast, you know.’

‘Actually, if you let yourself be, that’s exactly what you are.’

Mr Appleton called for everyone’s attention. ‘Great work this morning, Year 6. We’ll have a splendid creation by the time the week is out. Clear up now. Fifteen minutes’ break, then head in for lunch. This afternoon, be sure to put on quick-drying clothes. Canoeing, you know. It gets a bit damp.’

Paige grabbed a couple of lengths of spare willow while Curtis cleared their area. ‘Come on,’ she said. ‘This will be fun.’

Paige took Curtis out to the lawn in front of the house. Another group were out here. They sat in the shade of the trees. The lake looked inviting, cool against the heat of the midday sun. But there was no time for swimming.

‘We’ll start here,’ Paige said.

‘But there’s loads of people about,’ Curtis answered.

‘It’s true. They might disrupt the signals. But we’ve only got fifteen minutes.’

Curtis frowned.

Paige gave him a light punch on the arm. She knew he hadn’t really been worried about the others being signal disrupters. He was more worried about looking like an idiot. But that was never anything to worry about. ‘Ready?’

Curtis shoved his hands into his pockets, but nodded.

Paige held out the sticks in front of her and concentrated hard on the Wickworth Boy. She tried to see his face in her mind; his dark hair, skin the colour of bark and eyes that were angry and sad and kind, all at once.

As soon as she could see him clearly, she took a few steps forward. The grass was springy under her feet. She breathed gently. The sounds around her faded. It was just her and the dowsing rods that mattered.

‘Have you found anything yet?’ Curtis asked.

Paige sighed. ‘No. This could take a while. Why don’t you get two sticks and help me?’

‘I don’t know how to do it.’

‘It doesn’t matter. It’s a gift. Either you can do it, or you can’t. Simple as that. Go and get some sticks and let me concentrate.’

Curtis edged away slowly. She wasn’t sure that he would join in, but at least he wasn’t staring at her the whole time now either.

She took another slow breath and felt the delicate weight of the wicker in her hands. They were still, but as soon as she was on the trail, she knew they would leap and bounce, crossing and uncrossing like windscreen wipers on the blink. It was how she and Mum found the car keys quite often.

She imagined the boy in the painting smiling, beckoning her on. She took a few slow steps. Towards the lake. One of the rods turned gently, like a weather vane changing direction. She moved closer to the water. The other rod rotated too. They were both swaying together: left, pause, right, pause. They were picking up an energy, though it was still weak.

As she stepped on to the wooden jetty that stuck out over the lake, she felt one of the rods kick and leap in her hands.

The hairs on the back of her neck raised as though a spectral mouth had blown on them. She was close to something, she could feel it.

She stepped back on to dry land. The rods settled back into their gentle spin.

Forward on to the jetty. The rods twitched and crossed like a beginner’s baton class.

It was the jetty. Something was here, on the jetty.

Paige walked further out. On either side red and blue canoes bumped in the breeze. Soon, the rods in her hands were moving so fast they were scratching her palms; the air seemed dense and cold against her skin, despite the sunlight. Her heartbeat quickened. Something had happened here. The ghost of it lingered, like the sour feeling in a room after a row. She could feel the Wickworth Boy, trying to push his way through. Pressing down on her. Crushing her.

‘Gotcha!’

Paige squealed as a hand clamped down on her shoulder. ‘Curtis! You scared the life out of me!’

‘Sorry. You just looked like you were off in your own little world. I couldn’t resist.’

‘Well, try.’

‘OK. Sorry. Have you found something?’

‘I think so. Here, do you want a go?’ She handed the sticks to Curtis. He raised a suspicious eyebrow.

‘If you don’t take it seriously, then the spirits won’t work for you,’ she said.

Curtis shrugged. ‘The way I see it, my own subconscious is creating tiny electrical impulses in my nerves. Whenever my unconscious mind sees something it wants me to pay attention to, it will fire off the nerve endings. So, if this doesn’t work, then I’ve no one to blame but myself. What do I have to do?’

Paige moved beside Curtis and held his wrists. ‘Hold them like this, loose, but firm. OK? Then picture what you want to find in your mind. Try and see it really clearly. Then look for it. You’ll know when the rods have found something.’

Curtis nodded, but he was grinning like a cat in an ice cream van. He wasn’t taking this seriously at all.

Paige felt a sudden shiver of alarm. Should she really let him do this, if he wasn’t going to be respectful? What if the ghosts got angry?

‘Don’t worry,’ Curtis said. ‘Nothing bad can happen. I’m not running with scissors here.’

Paige gave a swift nod. ‘I think there’s something on the jetty. Walk on the grass and concentrate, just to get a feel for it. The sticks went crazy a second ago.’

She watched Curtis. Would he feel the same presence as she had?

He circled on the lawn for a few minutes, then turned towards her. He was still grinning. She frowned – if the ghosts didn’t get angry, she might. ‘Wipe that smirk off your face and concentrate,’ she said.

He forced his mouth into a frown, but Paige could tell there were giggles just below the surface.

Until he stepped on to the jetty.

‘What on earth?’ he said. The rods had leapt in his hands. ‘I didn’t do that!’ he said. She could hear a ripple of panic in his voice.

‘Of course not,’ Paige answered.

‘I mean it. That wasn’t me, or my subconscious. But it
had
to be. What else could it be? It was because you planted the suggestion. You Derren Browned me. You put the idea in my head.’

‘I did not,’ Paige said hotly. ‘You’re dowsing. That’s what happens. What we need to work out is, why here? What happened here?’

Paige watched Curtis pace backwards and forwards a few times. Each time he stepped on to the wooden jetty, the dowsing rods moved. He stopped. ‘What?’ Paige asked.

‘I think it’s all the ions in the water. Dowsing is meant to find water, after all. I think all it’s telling us is that there’s a lake here. I’m going to walk around a bit more and see what happens. Without you suggesting anything.’