Prospero's Children Read online

  “Pointless,” she said. “For one thing, there’s a limit to what you can say over the phone. For another, what would we tell him? That we heard some unknown creature sniffing inside the house and we can’t find the keys to the treasure chest and we think his girlfriend could be a witch? He’d probably assume we were both on drugs—or raving. And even if he did come home, there’s nothing he can do. Alison’s a lot smarter than he is. We’ll have to handle it ourselves.”

  Will’s soft gasp might have been sudden laughter. “You’ve dealt with all Daddy’s girlfriends to date,” he said.

  “This might be a bit more difficult,” Fern admitted.

  There was a short pause. She reached for the flashlight but did not move from the bed. “I think you ought to stay here for the rest of tonight,” Will said with an air of selfless chivalry which deceived neither of them. “We’ll be safer together.”

  “Okay,” she said. “Move over.”

  The bed was large but they curled up, back to back, each warmed by the other’s nearness, falling swiftly and unexpectedly into sleep.

  III

  Fern got up early the following morning and returned to her own room. Instinct warned her that it would be preferable if Alison did not suspect they were on their guard. However, although it was barely seven she was no longer sleepy, and she dressed and went out into the garden, her footsteps leading her inevitably toward the back gate and the path up the hill. The sun had not yet risen far above the eastern horizon and the shadow of the house lay long and black across the grass, but the slope beyond glittered with dew. There was no sign of the Watcher; he seemed to have been gone so long she had almost ceased to believe in their meeting. As she climbed higher emptiness stretched in every direction. A few sheep grazed across the valley; cloud-shadows mottled the upland moors; a lone bird soared, its whistling call like the music of some unearthly piper, summoning errant spirits back to their hollow hills before the gates closed on the mortal day. The Day—the Day to Man! thought Fern, remembering her Kip-ling. The wind that touched her cheek felt totally clean and free, a wind that knew neither bonds nor boundaries, which might have blown straight from some virgin height, over grass and gorse, rock and river, to be breathed only by her. The skyline above was unbroken, except where she saw the twin tufts of a wild plant poking upward like the cocked ears of a couched animal. Below, the valley opened out, a river-delved cleft in the rolling plateau, still cupping the last shades of retreating darkness, winding down toward the coast and the distant blue glimmer of the sea.

  She was nearly at the brow of the hill when the animal rose up in front of her. One moment there was only turf and that telltale glimpse of ear-tufts, and then the grass shivered into fur and the creature was on its feet, pink tongue lolling between ragged teeth, amber eyes fixed unblinking on her face. It was a dog: it must be a dog. It had a pointed vulpine muzzle with a ruff around its neck not quite long enough for a mane and a lean body built for running. Its coat was matted and dew-draggled, white-streaked, gray-flecked, shaded with brown, stippled with black. It might have been part sheepdog, part Alsatian, part vixen, part wolf. But Fern reminded herself that there had been no wolves in Britain since the Middle Ages. She knew immediately that it was female, though she could not have said how. Its unwavering stare was filled with latent meaning.

  Hesitantly, half afraid for herself, half nervous of inducing fear, Fern held out her hand. The animal sniffed, then licked. The wicked incisors were less than an inch from her fingers, yet she felt curiously at ease. “Did he send you here?” she asked softly. “Do you come from Ragginbone? Are you a Watcher too?” And then, as an afterthought: “Are you on guard?”

  The yellow eyes returned her questioning gaze with a steady intensity.

  “It was inside the house last night,” Fern went on, progressing from the preliminary introduction to a tentative pat, then to stroking the thick ruff. The fur was damped into rats’ tails as if the dog—she was definitely a dog—had been outside a long time. “I don’t know what kind of creature it is: it moves like a hound, only it’s too big for any species of hound I know. Ragginbone recognized it. He said it couldn’t come in without being invited, but it did, and I think . . . I think Alison must have let it in. She arrived yesterday, and that’s the first time it’s been inside the house.”

  The dog accepted Fern’s caresses with a quiver of uncertainty, a dignified restraint. Fern received the impression—she could not say how—that she was, not alarmed, but slightly unnerved, an aloof outcast unaccustomed to such demonstrations. This is ridiculous, Fern told herself. First I talk to a rock, now it’s a dog. “I don’t suppose you really understand,” she said aloud. “There’s probably a natural explanation for everything that’s happened. My imagination’s running away with me. Only why now? That’s what’s so confusing. I’m too old for fairy tales and anyhow, when I was a child I never let my fantasy take over. After my mother died, when I saw my father cry and I knew she was really gone, I was afraid all the time. I used to lie in bed at night seeing a demon in every shadow. I told myself over and over: there’s nothing there. There are no demons, no dragons, no witches, no elves, no Santa Claus. There are no vampires in Transylvania, no kingdoms in wardrobes, no lands behind the sun. A shadow is only a shadow. I made myself grow up, and put away childish things. I thought the adult world was a prosaic sort of place where everything was clear-cut, everything was tangible; but it isn’t. It isn’t. I don’t know who I am any more. I’m not sure about anyone. Who are you? Are you a dog? Are you a wolf?” The yellow stare held her; a rough tongue rasped her palm.

  “Cancel that question,” said Fern. “There are no wolves in England now. I have to go. Take care.” A strange thing to say to a dog, but then, Fern reflected uncomfortably, the entire one-sided conversation was strange. She hurried down the path almost as if she were running away.

  At the gate, she glanced round to find the dog at her heels. “You can’t come in,” she said, wondering why the words disturbed her, tapping at something in the back of her mind. Her companion, undeterred, slipped through the gate behind her before she could close it. Reaching the back door, Fern turned with more determination. “I’m sorry,” she began, but the dog stood a little way off, making no attempt to cross the threshold. Fern noted that she did not bark, or wag her tail, or do any of the things that dogs normally do. She simply stood there, waiting. “Would you like some water?” Fern said, relenting. And: “Come on then.” The animal slid past her in a movement too swift to follow, lying down beside the kitchen stove with her chin on her paws. And in the same instant something clicked in Fern’s head and she knew what she had done. For good or evil, she had invited the outcast in.

  Later, when Fern had had her morning bath, she found the kitchen unoccupied and the back door ajar. The latch was old-fashioned, the kind that an intelligent animal might be able to lift with its nose. On the outside, however, there was an iron ring which required the grip of a hand. Fern, in a deviation from her usual policy, resolved to see that the door was left slightly open at all times.

  It was a difficult day. Fern did not feel she could continue her search for the key with Alison in the vicinity, so she and Will escaped to the vicarage, where Maggie Dinsdale made them sandwiches and Gus drove them up onto the moors for a picnic. Back at Dale House, they found Alison in the barn with a measuring tape. She and Gus shook hands and exchanged pleasantries, thus disappointing Will, who confided in an aside to his sister that if she had been a witch she would surely not have been so friendly with a vicar. “Don’t be idiotic,” Fern responded. “Next you’ll expect her to wear a pointed hat.”

  Supper was happily brief: Alison retired straight afterward claiming she wanted to work on her picture. Will, going up to her room later with the excuse of an offer of coffee, reported that she had brought her own television. “That settles it,” he concluded. “I don’t like her. Why can’t she share it with us? That isn’t just selfishness, it’s . . . it’s sadism. We m
ust have a TV. Speak to Daddy about it.”

  “Mm.”

  “Do you know, when I opened the door she switched it off, as if she couldn’t bear me to see it even for a couple of minutes? I think she’s got a video too. I wish we had a video.”

  “Maybe she was watching something she considered unsuitable for little boys,” Fern suggested unkindly.

  They fell back on mah-jongg and a plate of Mrs. Wicklow’s biscuits, becoming so engrossed that it was almost midnight when Fern glanced at the clock. “Are you going to sleep in my room again?” Will asked, not looking at his sister, his voice carefully devoid of any wistfulness.

  “I don’t think it’s necessary,” Fern said. “Put something against your door, though—something heavy. You can bang on the wall if you really need me. I feel it’s important to . . . well, act nonchalant. As if we haven’t noticed anything out of the ordinary. Then either she’ll think we’re unobservant, which means she’ll be underestimating us, or she’ll be as baffled as we are. She’s behaving as if there’s nothing going on; so can we.”

  “Do you suppose Mrs. Wicklow was right,” Will said abruptly, “when she said she’d seen Alison before?”

  “Yes,” said Fern. “Yes, I do.”

  “Can you put a short wig over long hair?”

  “I think so. Actresses do it sometimes. I’m sure they do.”

  “This ought to be very exciting,” Will remarked. “I just wish I wasn’t scared. Are you scared?”

  “Shitless,” said Fern coolly, going over to the back door. The vulgarism was unusual for her and Will grinned.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Leaving the door open.”

  “What? If that creature comes—”

  “Our prowling visitor,” she pointed out, “can already get in: we know that. I want to be sure—” She hesitated, changed her tack. “I’m like Mrs. Wicklow. I want to let in the air.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “And don’t use that kind of language.”

  “But you said—”

  “I’m sixteen,” said Fern haughtily. “I’m allowed.”

  They went upstairs still squabbling, falling silent, by mutual consent, at the foot of the second flight. Fern mounted a few steps, but there was no sound from Alison’s room. The low wattage lighting favored by Great-Cousin Ned did not reach far, and the upper landing was swathed in shadow. She could see Alison’s door but it was firmly closed and she hoped the sense of oppression which seemed to emanate from it was the result of pure fancy and overstrained nerves. She stole quietly back to her brother and the two of them went to their respective beds.

  For all his apprehension, Will fell asleep quickly; but Fern sat up, reading by flashlight so no betraying gleam could be seen under the door, her senses on alert, half fearful, half in a sort of desperate expectancy. More than an hour passed while she tried in vain to concentrate on the story, unable to restrain herself from regular glances at her traveling clock: the luminous hands seemed to snail around the dial, spinning out the minutes, dragging her down into slumber. A brief shower battered on the window, until a rush of wind swept it away. When the snuffling finally started, she had almost given up. Her body jerked upright on a reflex, snatching her cheek from the pillow; her breath was caught in her throat; her eyes dilated, though there was nothing to be seen. She switched off the flashlight and retrieved the book, which was slipping floorward. In the corridor outside she heard the sniffing moving closer, hesitating at Will’s door, progressing on to hers. There was the familiar ragged panting, the not-quite-noiseless footfalls, the sudden scrabble of claws on wood. And then silence. A new silence, invading the passageway, tangible as a presence. The snuffling and the clawing had ceased, the panting changed into a low snarl, a soft, dark noise on the edge of hearing, rising slowly to a growl, a sound neither feline nor canine but somewhere in between. Fern thought she had never in her life heard anything so totally evil. Then came a sudden rush, the skidding of paws on bare board, the swish of bunching drugget, a clamor of snapping, worrying, grumbling, an ugly yowl. Heavy bodies seemed to be struggling and writhing; a crash told of an overturned table, a shattered vase. Yet throughout Fern was convinced it was the intruder who made most of the noise: the challenger was mute, with no voice to cry defiance or pain. She heard a scurrying as of something bent on escape: one set of paws fled toward the stairs, chasing or being chased, and then quiet supervened. Out in the garden there was a howl of baffled rage, maybe of fear; but it died away, and only the wind returned, droning among the chimneys, and under the eaves. Fern had grown used to the wind; they had become friends. She lay down, smiling faintly, heedless of the damage she envisaged outside her door. A name came into her mind, clear and certain as a call: Lougarry.

  She fell asleep.

  At breakfast, Alison was irritable. “Nightmares,” she said. “I thought I could hear voices crying, shrieks, moans. I expect it was the wind.” Will looked innocent, Fern bland. She had risen early to dispose of the broken vase; it was one Robin had said might be valuable; but then, his daughter reflected, he always said that. A rapid confabulation had revealed that Will, too, had witnessed the fight in the night.

  “I slept well,” Fern asseverated sweetly.

  Will merely smiled, and attacked his Frosties.

  A little to their surprise, Alison chose to go for a walk later, declining company even before they had had an opportunity not to offer it. Afterward the back door, unlatched, swung open; the dog was waiting outside. “Come in,” Fern said. “You don’t have to wait for permission. You’re always welcome.” She came in, hobbling on three legs: there was blood on the fourth, dried into brownish crystals, and more blood clogging the thick fur of her ruff. She lay down at Fern’s feet and fixed her with that steady unhuman gaze.

  “That’s a wolf,” said Will. “I know it is. Where did you find it?”

  “She found me. Get some antiseptic; I’ve seen a bottle of Dettol somewhere. She’s hurt.”

  “It was her,” Will said, “last night—wasn’t it?”

  “Fetch the Dettol.”

  The animal was docile while Fern cleaned her wounds and applied cream from a tube of Savlon, crusted from long disuse, which was all they could find. The tears in her shoulder were deep and ugly but her expression appeared indifferent, beyond suffering. “Lougarry,” Fern murmured. The tired muzzle lifted; the ears pricked.

  “Thank you,” said Will.

  Robin phoned that evening: Alison spoke to him at length and hovered when Fern took over, making confidences impossible. “Of course we’re selling,” he reiterated a little too forcefully. “Leave it to Alison. Bright girl. Knows what she’s doing. Gave me the name of a useful chap over here— professor of witchcraft—they have professorships for everything in America. What’s that, darling? Can’t hear you.”

  The line shouldn’t be this bad, thought Fern, giving up. We live in an age of satellite technology. Supposing it isn’t the phone . . .

  Alison left on Monday, promising to return by the end of the week. “She may be involved in this business,” Will said, “but I don’t believe she’s the real enemy. She’s not . . . she’s not frightening enough.”

  “What do you want?” asked Fern. “The Devil in person? Yesterday you complained you were scared; today you’re complaining you’re not scared enough. That isn’t logical.”

  “I’m still scared,” Will explained, “but not of Alison. She’s all slippery charm: you think you’ve caught her out—you think you can pin her down—but her personality just slithers away from you as if it were greased. Mrs. Wicklow says she saw her before, but she isn’t absolutely sure. She must have come here after something, but she hasn’t tried to search the house. We think she’s controlling that creature that sniffs in the night, but we don’t know. We can’t prove anything.”

  “I thought you believed in the impossible,” said Fern. “Now you want proof.” She was anointing Lougarry’s injuries as she spoke: once Alison had go
ne, the dog had come into the kitchen and lain down in the place beside the stove which she had taken for her own.

  “Not exactly. I want to know what we’re up against.” Will cupped his chin in his hand, gazing dreamily into the middle distance. “What’s really going on? Sometimes I feel we’re tangled in a dark web of supernatural forces, but if you try to snatch at a single strand it frays into a shadow and then there’s nothing there. What the hell are we all looking for, anyway?”

  “Actually,” Fern began, finally resolved to tell him about the key—but Mrs. Wicklow came in, cutting her short, and the impulse to confide passed.

  Inevitably, the housekeeper objected to Lougarry. “Great-Cousin Ned had a dog,” Fern reminded her. “You told us so.”

  “That’s not a dog,” said Mrs. Wicklow. “Looks more like a wolf. It’s probably savage, anyway. If it’s been killing sheep there’ll be real trouble, police and that. I’d better go call someone to fetch it away.”

  “Have any sheep been killed?” Fern challenged, unobtrusively crossing her fingers. She had a feeling that taking mutton on the hoof would be well within Lougarry’s scope.

  Mrs. Wicklow conceded grudgingly that they hadn’t. “Been fighting, though, by the look of it,” she said. “Those cuts look nasty. You want to take it to t’ vet: he’ll see to it. I daresay t’ reverend would give you a lift.”

  Lougarry’s lip lifted in a soundless snarl.

  “I don’t think she’d like that,” Fern said.

  “What’ll you do about feeding it? Haven’t thought about that, have you? You can’t just give it Madam Slimline’s leftovers.”