As usual, Jenny had to suffer the book with me as it crawled into being. Mat and Sharika put up one of my characters in their flat, while another borrowed some elements from Tammy's and Sam's. Parts of the first draft were written in Venice (where I fear the hotel room afforded little writing space), in the Byzantium Apartments in Troulos on the island of Skiathos, at Fantasycon in Nottingham, the Festival of Fantastic Films in Manchester and the H. P. Lovecraft Film Festival in Portland, Oregon. My thanks to Steve and Justin of the Portland White House for their hospitality – what they call a bed and breakfast I'd describe as a small and very splendid hotel – and to Andrew and Linda Migliore of the Festival for much stimulating fun. I also have a special thank you to Huw Lines for the cry.
THIEVING FEAR
TEN YEARS EARLIER
'Good night,' Ellen called to Hugh, 'brilliant teacher.'
A boat chugged on the river beyond the cliffs before Hugh said 'Night' from the brothers' tent as if he wasn't sure his cousin Ellen had meant him.
'Good night, famous artist,' Ellen called to Rory.
The sound of the engine had dwindled towards the Welsh coast by the time Rory responded 'Aren't we getting too old for this?'
Charlotte wriggled around in her sleeping bag to face Ellen in the dark. 'He means camping out,' she said loud enough for Rory to hear.
'You mustn't let our aunt and uncle know you think that even if you do,' Ellen called to Rory.
'He won't. Go on, say good night,' urged Hugh.
'I don't need my little bro to tell me what to do.' In a voice more childish than he'd sounded when he was half his sixteen years Rory added 'Nighty-night, sweet dreams.'
'Don't let him take away the magic,' Charlotte murmured. 'He's only being like boys are.'
'Hugh isn't,' Ellen said lower still. 'Anyway, good night, equally famous writer.'
'And good night, caring person,' Charlotte said to Ellen.
If this sounded feeble by comparison, at least it was true. Three short stories in the school magazine and half a dozen chapters of a novel not even printed out from her computer hardly entitled Charlotte to be judged a writer, even if she might like to earn the name as much as Hugh wanted to teach and Rory, though he would never admit it, to be hailed a painter. 'Wake up older,' she called.
'And wiser,' said Hugh.
'And prettier,' Ellen supplied.
'And with all your eyes open.'
'How many of those have you got, Rory?'
'Watch it, Hugh, or we'll be thinking you've got an imagination.'
'Now, boys,' Ellen said, 'don't spoil the summer. Let's just enjoy our lovely night.'
They'd recently finished gazing at the sky while it filled with dark and stars. When Rory pointed out galaxies nobody else had noticed, Charlotte had suggested they were ghosts composed of light from the distant past. She might have been happy to continue lying outside on the grass if the vista of infinity hadn't made the ground feel infirm, an impression gradually dissipating now that she was snug in her padded cocoon. At least the tents were as far from the edge of the cliff as the campers had promised Auntie Betty once she'd finished failing to persuade Rory to camp in the back garden. 'We'll look after the girls,' Hugh had said in case that helped.
Charlotte was drifting into sleep as these memories grew blurred when Ellen spoke. Her voice was loose with slumber, so that it took Charlotte some moments to guess the word or words: hardly 'Pendemon', since that meant as little as a dream; possibly 'Pendulum' if not 'Depends on . . .' She peered across the narrow space between the bags and was just able to distinguish that Ellen was facing her with eyes shut tight. Even more indistinctly Ellen protested 'Don't want to see. Won't look.'
'Don't,' Charlotte advised, and might have said it louder if it would rescue Ellen from her dream. Perhaps Ellen was attached to the experience, because with an emphatic wriggle she presented her back to her cousin. 'Keep it to yourself, then,' Charlotte said and returned to her search for sleep.
Oddly, Ellen's words left her feeling watched. The brothers had been silent for a while, but the darkness was finding its voices: the croak of a frog on the common, the cry of a midnight bird over the river. A breeze tried the flap of the tent before rattling a clump of gorse. Was Charlotte hearing a frog or a crow? The harsh sound was more prolonged than she would have expected from either. As Ellen stirred uneasily Charlotte took the chance to say 'What do you think that is out there?'
Ellen had no view, though she expelled a breath that might have been a wordless plea for her to be left alone. Perhaps Charlotte's question had come close to rousing her, unless the noise close by on the common had. In a moment the pair of croaks was repeated. Could the speaker be uttering them behind a hand? That would explain their stifled quality, and speaker seemed to be the right word, since she could imagine that the repetition contained two syllables. It sounded like her name. 'All right, Mr Punch,' she called. 'Let's have those dreams you were talking about.'
She was turning over when he repeated the utterance. Was Hugh asleep? She would have expected him to second her request if it had been audible in the boys' tent. 'Shush now, Rory,' she said loud enough to make Ellen shift with a rustle of the fabric of her bag, but he scarcely let her finish before he croaked her name again. If she remonstrated any louder she might waken Ellen. She eased the zip down on her sleeping bag until she was able to slide out and untie the bow that held shut the flap of Betty's and Albert's tent. As she ducked through the opening and raised her head she was greeted by her name.
Now she understood why Hugh hadn't intervened. Rory wasn't speaking from their tent but somewhere closer to the cliff. The trouble was that he had nowhere to hide on the expanse of turfy common. He must be lurking over the edge, beyond which the black river underlined the Welsh coast that glittered as if a section of the sky had fallen to earth. 'I know where you are,' she called, impatient with the joke. 'Come back before we both catch cold.'
In fact the grass beneath her bare feet seemed no colder than the inside of the sleeping bag had been. Might Rory be sickening for something, though? When he spoke her name again as if he couldn't think or couldn't bother thinking of another word, she realised why she'd mistaken his voice for a crow's before she was quite awake; it kept catching in his throat, perhaps on phlegm. 'Give it a rest,' she urged. 'You don't want to fall down the cliff.'
This put her in mind of the girl who had thrown herself off, unless she'd slipped while running along the edge nearby, above the rocks. According to their uncle's version of last year's local newspaper report, she had been bullied at school – at least, she'd told her parents that she couldn't stand how she was being watched. Charlotte felt as if she were gaining years of maturity to compensate for the ones he seemed happy to give up, because she was striding across the blackened grass to find him rather than abandoning him to his silly fate. She was almost at the cliff when she faltered, throwing up her arms for balance or from frustration. The clogged voice had named her yet again, but it was at her back.
As she twisted around, the sky seemed to reel like a whirlpool brimming with stars. How had he managed to sneak past her? The common was deserted all the way to the twin elongated pyramids of the tents, and beyond them for at least a quarter of a mile to a dim hedge bordering a dimmer field. 'Throwing your voice now?' she suggested before realising how he could. No wonder it was so harsh and indistinct if he was using a cheap microphone. Of course he must have hidden a receiver somewhere in the grass.
It was almost at her feet. By the time it finished dragging out her name again she was within inches of it. The voice sounded more congested than ever, so that she wondered if soil had got into the receiver. Her T-shirt rode up her thighs as she crouched, having distinguished a gap in the turf where Rory had cut into it to hide the receiver. She dug her fingers into the overgrown gap and lifted the large square of turf.