Obsidian Pebble (2 page)

“Yeah,” he said, “that's because it is buzzard wicked.”

* * *

Ellie finally arrived just before eight, much to Oz's relief, and as soon as she had dumped her stuff in a room next to Mrs. Chambers', announced that she was “well starving.” In the kitchen, there seemed to be even more food than two hours before.

“I thought you should have the pumpkin soup here, since it's hot,” Mrs. Chambers said. “Then you can take the rest through.”

“Thanks, Mum,” Oz said as his mother ladled out the steaming broth. He watched her fussing and smiled. She was almost back to her normal, over-the-top self, and he wasn't going to complain about that.

“This is amazing,” Ellie said, shutting her eyes ecstatically and breathing in the aroma.

“Buzzard,” was Ruff's contribution, but it emerged through a mouthful of crusty bread and came out as “buhdduh,” which made Oz giggle, but Ellie merely scowled.

Oz had never invited Ellie and Ruff over to stay at Penwurt at the same time. They had, of course, both stayed on separate occasions. Ruff two or three times, and Ellie dozens over the years, but tonight was the first time for them all to be there together, and Oz was hoping that it would work out. But if that little frown of irritation on Ellie's lips was anything to go by, it did not look all that promising.

“You know that any time you've had enough tonight, just call me and I'll come and get you,” Mrs. Chambers said with feeling as she cut more bread.

“Mum, we're going to be twenty yards away.” Oz had been through all this with her a hundred times. It had taken ages to convince her to let them stay the night in the old block and now was not the time for her to start having cold feet.

“I know that, but all I'm saying is…”

“We'll be fine.”

“Oh-kay,” Mrs. Chambers said, making her eyes wide in an “I've-got-the-message” kind of way and starting to pull the tea towels off the things she'd made. The reveal immediately triggered a series of astonished oohs and aahs from everyone.

“Is that really brain pâté?” asked Ellie, goggling at a pink mass which looked exactly like it had just come out of someone's skull. Her honey-coloured hair was tied back and her large, deep blue eyes were currently twice as big as usual from staring at the food.

“Cream cheese, mushroom soup and prawns. Bit garish looking, but it tastes fantastic, even if I say so myself,” Mrs. Chambers explained.

Ruff pointed to a tray covered in golfball-sized objects. “And are those…”

“Marshmallow eyeballs.” Mrs. Chambers nodded and popped one into her mouth. “Delicious.”

Ruff grinned and devoured one, too. Oz watched his face dissolve in rapture.

“Mmmm, see just what you mean.”

“That's awful,” Ellie said, groaning.

“Eyeful, more like,” Oz said, pushing away his empty soup bowl. “Come on, grab a sleeping bag and let's go through.”

Oz went to a door to the left of the stone stairwell, one that was usually kept locked.

But not tonight.

They crossed a passageway to another door, which opened out into a large, shabby-looking entrance hall with a massive double staircase leading up to the floor above. The place smelled musty and unused and their voices echoed into the chilly emptiness when they spoke.

“This atrium used to be the orphanage dining room,” Oz announced.

“Is this where we're having the feast?” Ellie asked, sounding impressed.

“No. I thought we'd use the old dorm. It's really spooky in there.”

“I've always wanted to spend a Halloween night in a real haunted house,” Ruff said, rubbing his hands together. “It's going to be so spooky.”

“Don't build your hopes up,” Ellie said. “Nine times out of ten these things end up being rubbish.”

“Nothing like a bit of enthusiasm, is there?” Ruff tutted. “And anyway, the place is a legend. It was even in
Hidden Haunted Houses of Great Britain
.”

“I didn't know that,” Oz said.

“Ye-ah, it was in the reference section in Waterstone's the other day. It said something like… ‘an old orphanage on Magnus Street in Seabourne now occupies the site of the Bunthorpe Encounter. One of the most famous supernatural occurrences in the country.'”

“Cool,” Oz said, pleased. “I'll Google it later.”

“Looks more real in a book, though, somehow, don't you think?” Ellie said.

Oz knew what she meant. He made a mental note to look it up next time he was in the bookshop. They walked up the stairs and passed a peculiar-looking, wrought-iron chandelier bearing a huge bird of prey with wings unfurled at its centre.

“That is so weirdly mingin',” Ruff said. He kept glancing at it uneasily as he climbed and Oz resisted the urge to say “buzzard” with the utmost difficulty.

On the first floor the doors had all been boarded up except for one, which, though not boarded, was padlocked. Oz took them up one more flight to the second floor, where another stairway ran up to their left to another door.

“Where does that go?” asked Ellie.

“Fire escape,” Oz explained. “Quickest way down.”

“Worth knowing for when the mad axe-man calls,” she said with a furtive look at Ruff, who had glanced nervously behind him on hearing the words “axe-man.”

Oz walked forward a few steps along the landing and stopped before a huge oak door. He pushed it open and, as if on cue, it creaked magnificently. They stepped across the threshold into a large, dark space. Ruff tried the wall switch, but nothing happened. The only light came from thin beams of moonlight slanting through the windows on the eastern wall. Oz flicked on his torch and made his way to the centre of the dorm. He pushed a couple of plugs into extension leads and instantly the lamps he'd arranged lit up the dormitory. What was revealed was a room that spanned the length of the building. Yards of oak paneling lined the walls, upon which hung a variety of old paintings and photos. Long, dusty strings of cobweb wafted in the draughty corners, adding nicely to the room's eerie air of abandonment.

“Take a look at this,” Ellie called to the other two as she peered at one of the photos. The boys joined her and stared at a faded black and white print of the very room they were standing in, but lined with twenty-two beds just like an old hospital ward. “Must be what the dorm was like.”

“Wow,” Ruff said. “Not exactly private, was it?”

In the centre, near the lamps, Oz had laid out three folding chairs and two foldaway tables, one bearing a flat-screen monitor and his Xbox.

“There's a toilet block at the far end,” Oz explained. “The lights do work in there, just in case you were wondering.”

Ruff stood surveying his surroundings, open-mouthed. “This is absolutely buzzard,” he said, grinning.

“What films have you got?” Ellie asked.

“
Fangman
and
Revenge of Fangman
,” Oz said.

“I brought
Toy Story
.”

“
Toy Story
?” Oz laughed.

“Just in case we need cheering up,” Ellie explained. “You know how nervy Ruff gets.”

“Hang on, I thought you were the one that said that Halloween was a load of cobblers.” Oz grinned.

“Yeah, but I suppose if anything could happen on Halloween, it'd happen in a place like this, wouldn't it?”

“Hey, look at the ceiling.” Ruff craned his neck upwards and Ellie followed suit.

Richly decorated wooden beams ran from east to west, red, green and blue chevrons adorning their sides. Between, on the plaster ceiling itself, detailed paintings of birds and weird-looking buildings and symbols filled the space. The effect was striking and original.

“Yeah, downstairs is like that, too,” Oz explained. “It's the sixteenth-century equivalent of wallpaper, or so my dad told me.”

“It's so cool,” Ellie said. “And to think it's lasted all that time.”

Oz nodded.

“I wish I had a long-lost uncle who would leave me something in his will. Wouldn't it be great if it's your sixteenth birthday and a crusty old lawyer bloke turns up with a crinkly yellow envelope full of stocks and bonds and stuff worth zillions?” Ruff was looking at the ceiling, but his eyes were seeing something else altogether.

Oz didn't really know what stocks and bonds were and neither, he suspected, did Ruff. But they sounded really impressive.

“As if that would ever happen to anyone,” Ellie tutted.

Ruff threw her a baleful, sulky look. “It sort of happened to Oz, didn't it? His dad, anyway.”

“Yeah, well, getting something like this dropped in your lap isn't exactly like winning the lottery, you know,” Oz said, not wanting to let Ruff and Ellie argue. “It costs loads to run and takes ages to clean. And even the draughts have draughts.”

Ellie stared at him. “You're not thinking of leaving, are you?” she asked, horrified.

Oz grinned. “Not if I have anything to do with it.” He'd hoped they'd like the place, but to see them both so impressed had made his day. “Come on, let's get the food up here.”

With the heaters on, it was quite cozy within their little den. They sprayed on a few more boils and let fake blood drip off their stuck-on scars, but soon Ruff had
Fangman
up on the screen and they began tucking in to Mrs. Chambers' brilliant food. Ellie enjoyed dipping spoon-shaped bits of bread into the brain pâté more than anything else, while Oz had at least half a dozen freaky fingers. Mrs. Chambers had deliberately put some marzipan in their middles because she knew Oz couldn't resist it.

All in all, it was a brilliant night.

Ellie had them in stitches as she explained how she'd accidentally broken the nose of her taekwondo teacher the week before because he'd sneezed just as she was practising a head kick. Ruff, meanwhile, obviously deeply scarred by spending a week outdoors helping his dad paint the chalets, kept on about how cold he'd been.

“I swear I saw a penguin on the lake, and one morning there was this humongous dollop next to the perimeter fence which looked moistly fresh. I think it definitely must have been polar bear poo and not anything to do with the caretaker's Alsatian like my dad said it was.”

“Ugghh,” Ellie said, and quickly put down the freaky fig roll she was about to bite into. “Why do you have to be so disgusting?”

Oz didn't hear Ruff's response because he was laughing so much. He'd known Ellie since the age of four. They'd attended the same playgroup and were in the same class at Hurley Street Junior School. Gwen and Ellie's mum, Fay, were friends, so Oz and Ellie had virtually grown up together. He knew he could trust her with just about anything. Funnily enough, despite only knowing Ruff for the seven weeks he'd been at Seabourne County, Oz felt much the same way about him. He only wished that Ellie did, too. But on this Halloween night, he couldn't think of anywhere else he'd rather be, nor anyone else he'd rather be with.

They'd all seen
Fangman
half a dozen times, yet when the ghoul crept into the bedroom to steal the hero's little sister, Oz thought he saw Ellie inch her chair a little closer to his own.
Fangman Two
was almost as good and they munched on fried spiders—which were really splayed-out bits of crispy bacon—and slurped on marshmallow eyeballs until the DVD finally came to an end.

“What time is it?” said Ellie, stifling a yawn as the credits rolled on the second film.

“Fifteen minutes to the witching hour,” Ruff said.

“And what's supposed to happen then?” Oz asked.

“Dunno, but that's when it all happens in the films, isn't it?”

“My mum says that the real witching hour is half past three in the morning,” Ellie said knowingly.

“Buzzard,” Ruff retorted, “you'd think they'd all be asleep by then.”

“Tell you what,” Oz suggested, “why don't we turn all the lights off and just sit by the windows? See if we can see anything outside in the moonlight.”

“Yeah,” Ruff agreed, hopping uncomfortably. “But first I need the loo. Oh, and we're out of Coke, by the way.”

“Oh, no,” Oz groaned. “I left the other bottle in the fridge.”

Ruff and Ellie looked at him, grinning expectantly, as he hurried out and down the atrium stairs, muttering to himself as he went.

“And while you're at it, get
Revenge of the Gargoyle Ghoul
. I left it in your bedroom,” Ruff yelled after him.

Oz ran back down the staircase, through the kitchen—where his mum had left all the lights on—and went quietly upstairs to his bedroom to fetch the DVD. Ruff's room was next to his, but on the other side was the locked door to his dad's study. Oz glanced at it wistfully. It had been like that for over two years now. Ever since his dad had died. One day, when his mother felt strong enough to open it up, he would explore that room and examine all the weird and wonderful things his dad had brought back from his travels. One day.

Back in the kitchen, Oz tried to be as quiet as he could, but he had to move some dishes in the fridge to get at the Coke and grimaced as they clinked together. As he backed up with his hands full, the door thudded shut, causing the dishes to clink alarmingly once more and a couple of fridge magnets to fall clattering to the floor. One, shaped like a pink slice of cake, was there to hold the corner of a calendar up on the fridge door. This week's page had scribbles all over it, like “order four pints milk,” and “hygienist—9 o'clock.” But without its magnetic support, the corner of the calendar had sagged drunkenly downards

It wasn't the noise of the dishes, nor what was written on the calendar that made the breath suddenly catch in Oz's throat. It was what was revealed on the sheet of paper behind the calendar that suddenly drew Oz's horrified stare, made him gasp and his stomach lurch.

Once, when things had been very bad, before she'd started the medicine that had helped make her better, Oz had tried asking his mother what exactly was wrong with her. It had been a particularly bad dressing-gown day of constant crying and not eating, and Oz had felt more than usually helpless. With a huge effort she'd looked up at him, sensing for once his desperation, her face full of pleading, her voice a hollow whisper.