Book of Lies

  Then we can all be happy together. Together, forever.

  The book will be mine.

  I sense a movement, a presence, and turn.

  By the fence in the moonlight stands a fox, unlike any I’ve seen before. It’s big and has a huge bushy black tail. It tips its head to one side and stares.

  Quinn

  “I really can’t believe we’re doing this. Thanks for coming with me.” I look sideways at Zak. We’re sitting in the gazebo out front of the Two Bridges Hotel.

  “It’s not something you should do alone. Though I really think Piper should be here, too. She’s the one who arranged to meet him.”

  “Well, it makes sense that we can’t be seen around here together without creating a massive fuss. Also, twins might be a shock to him, since she didn’t mention it. And she thought I should be the one, as it was me who wanted to find him originally.”

  “Being seen together is something you and Piper will have to face eventually.”

  I shrug, a little uneasy. I parroted Piper’s reasons without knowing why she didn’t tell Hamley that there are two of us. Gran knows, and the promise Piper extracted that we not let anyone else know we are twins until her dad knows as well seems like it shouldn’t apply to our real father. I shake my head; it doesn’t matter. I still plan to leave—​meet my father, then find the book, give it to Piper, and leave. Alone.

  If no one but Gran knows we are twins, no one but Gran will know I am missing. A shiver runs down my back; I shake it off. I can go somewhere nobody knows me and try to start over—​to grasp at the slim hope that if I leave the moors, the hunt will sleep again.

  Piper may not be with us, but she is the reason we decided the gazebo would be a good place to meet. She’s watching. We left her and Ness a safe distance away, binoculars from Zak’s car in her hand.

  “Are you ready?” Zak asks.

  “Yes. As ready as I’m going to get.”

  Zak slips a comforting hand on mine, then gets up and walks across the lawn, past the marauding geese, and through the door.

  He is gone for a while. Maybe Will Hamley didn’t turn up? I’m cold, and wrap my arms around myself. Just when I think I’ll give up and join Zak in the hotel, the door opens. Zak steps out, followed by a man.

  Will Hamley’s hair is still red, what there is of it. He sees me in the gazebo, says something to Zak, and they start to walk toward me. They’ve got pints in their hands. Was that the cause of the delay?

  Will’s steps seem a little unsteady.

  When they get closer, I stand up. He walks over to me. Zak hangs back, but as I asked, close enough to listen—​to help me if I can’t work out what to say.

  “Oh my God,” he says. “You’re so like my darling Izzy. But with my hair.” He smiles wryly. “Sorry about that.”

  I don’t say anything. I don’t know what to say.

  “Quinn, is it?”

  I nod.

  “Weird name. Can’t blame that on me.”

  “No,” I say, finding my voice. “You’re Will Hamley, is that right?”

  “Guilty as charged.”

  “Did you know about me? I mean, did you know . . .”

  “That Izzy was pregnant? No.” He sighs. “Her mother hated me; I never knew why. Izzy seemed to like that, sneaking out and meeting me on the moors. But then one day we’d arranged to meet and she didn’t show. I saw her at the hotel, and she blanked me. I waited until her shift was over, and followed behind as she walked home to make her talk to me. I’ll never forget that night. The wind was wild; it was raining. She stared at me and said it was over. I thought she was crying; maybe it was just the rain on her cheeks. She said she never wanted to see me again; that I should move away and never come back. She seemed almost afraid. I always thought her mum had got to her somehow.”

  I stare back at him, the sadness in his eyes and story taking hold. Isobel, his Izzy: she who always hated the rain. Was this why?

  His eyes drop to my wrist. “Is that Izzy’s bracelet?”

  I raise my hand self-consciously so he can see it, then let it drop again. “Did she wear it back then?”

  “Always. She’d never take it off. Said it was important, that she needed it to be safe.” He shrugs. “Crazy stuff she said sometimes, but when she said something, somehow I always believed her. Anyway, how have things been for you all these years? Have you been all right?”

  And for some reason, I lie. I tell him I’ve had a wonderful childhood with his Izzy, and everything has been fine. Lying is easy; it’s becoming a habit.

  “How about you?” I ask.

  “I did what Izzy wanted me to do. Like I always did. I left. I’m sorry. If I’d known . . . well. Things might have been different.” He shrugs. “Then again, they might not have been.”

  He looks around us and shivers, takes a long drink from his pint. “There’s something about the moors that gets to me.”

  “It’s not a safe place. You should leave; you should get away from here, as far away as you can.” My belly is twisting. The words came from a certainty so strong, it is all I can do not to grab his hand and drag him away. A flash of something from the night fills my mind. I push it away and focus on here, now.

  “That sounds a lot like what Izzy said to me all those years ago. I can take a hint.” He finishes his pint. “Thanks for the drink,” he says, turning to Zak. He walks slowly back to the hotel, and disappears inside.

  Zak and I head back to Gran’s house, collecting Piper on the way. Zak tells me that Will had downed two pints, one after the other, before he’d come out to see me. He seemed genuinely shaken by Izzy’s death—​funny how I’m thinking of her as Izzy, now. She seems more like a real, three-dimensional person to me than she ever did when she was alive. I’m getting a sense of her being this rebel who flirted in bars and went out with Will to annoy her mother. What made her into the cold woman I knew?

  Despite how it ended, maybe their relationship meant something to her—​maybe there were tears on her cheeks with the raindrops, and she really loved him. It’s hard to see it as possible, with him as he is now. But even if it wasn’t real to her, it was to him. And she told him to go and broke his heart. She never told him about us, not in all these years. How could she do that?

  Piper asks about the meeting as we walk, and I let Zak answer her questions. She seems as subdued as I feel. She doesn’t ask why I sent him away, much like his Izzy did all those years ago, and I’m glad. How can I answer that when I don’t know myself?

  I’d wanted to meet my real father, and there he was. And I told him to go. Not because I never wanted to see him again; somehow, I was compelled to do it.

  Gran comes down for dinner and doesn’t seem surprised that Zak is still here. She doesn’t comment on it one way or the other. Just looks at him sadly.

  Piper

  This night has a purpose, a target—​work that must be done.

  Come. Hunt with me tonight!

  I call them from the trees, and we become one again.

  Clouds hide the moon. The moors are dark, dangerous. But not to us.

  We run side by side. This prey is slow and stumbles in the dark. The sharp stink of his fear is on the wind, and easy to follow.

  Make him run. Make him suffer, like she did.

  And so we hang back, steer him where I want him to go.

  He falls, pulls himself up, falls again, but this time there is no getting up. He is caught fast in the bog we’d been herding him toward. Struggling, he sinks ever deeper, held tighter.

  We wait until the clouds pull back. Moonlight reveals the shadow of death, stark and oozing, on his skin.

  He sees our eyes gleaming around him. His scream is short-lived as we rip out his throat, maddened by blood.

  Hot, intoxicating blood.

  Quinn

  That night, I run with the hunt again.

  I try to leave it, to travel back to myself, but I can’t—​I’m held in its grip.

  When it?
??s finally over, I come back to myself, and cry.

  Piper

  I slip out the front door into the darkness, finally giving up on sleep. I’m full of nervous energy and walk along the fence. There is a damp chill in the air that promises winter. The last leaves have given up their hold on bare branches, to join their rotting friends on the ground—​the dead and dying that crunch under my feet. So it must always be: the old die, to allow the young to live.

  I’d been furious at what my ancestor had gone through.

  And at that Will Hamley, too. When I’d held the binoculars yesterday, even at that distance, I could see it. He was filth. The thought of him touching my mother makes me ill. How could she let him near her?

  The sky is just starting to lighten. The sun struggles to come up, casting streaks of pink in low cloud. It’s going to be a spectacular sunrise.

  I slip back inside and rouse Zak. His hair is tousled, his eyes half open. I’m tempted to slip under the warm covers with him—​to lie against his warm skin, feel the hot blood th- thump, th-thump that rushes through his body as his heart beats.

  Hot, joyous blood. Dark hunger inside . . .

  I shake my head, hard, and take his hand, and lead him outside.

  We stand in silence in the shadows, arms around each other, and watch. Orange and pink soon stretch across the sky, streaked with cloud, white, gray, and blue.

  “All right, Piper,” Zak murmurs in my ear. “I guess that was worth getting up and freezing half to death for. Now, how about some tea?”

  “You’re soft. It’s not that cold. But if you insist . . .”

  We walk to the door, pause on the step, and look back at the sky.

  “Wait a minute,” Zak says. “I think we’ve got company.” Zak shades his eyes with his hand, peers up the hill. “Yes. One person—​a woman, I think—​heading this way.”

  I find where he is looking: a lone figure walking down the hill.

  “That’s interesting. I wonder who it could be? Stay here and watch. I’ll wake Quinn. If they come here, one of us has to hide.”

  Quinn is still under the covers, but when I go to her, her eyes are open, staring at the ceiling.

  “Quinn?” She doesn’t stir. “Quinn?” I say again.

  Her head moves slowly. Her eyes are red. “What?”

  “There’s someone walking down the hill. It looks like they’re heading here.”

  She doesn’t answer.

  “Any idea who it could be?”

  She sighs. “Of course. I should have realized it would start again, now that they know Gran is back.”

  “Well, who is it, and what should we do? Do you want to hide, or shall I?”

  She shrugs. “Hide if you want to. You’ll be all right if you stay in this room; they never come in here. But we need to ask Gran if she wants to take visitors or not.”

  “I’ll do it. Get yourself up or something.”

  I skip up the stairs, knock on Gran’s door, then open it and peer in. She’s up, dressed, pinning her white hair. She speaks without turning. “Yes, I know who approaches. I’ll be down in a moment.”

  I stay in the front room as Quinn suggested, and listen. The door opens; Zak comes in with whoever it is. Quinn says hello, and thank you, and she’ll be with you soon.

  Footsteps come down the stairs; there are murmuring voices. Then a door opens, shuts, and I can hear them no more.

  Quinn and Zak come in and shut the door. She has a bag on her arm.

  “What is that?” I ask her.

  She shrugs. “Payment.” She peers inside. “Let’s see: money. Tea, fresh bread. Eggs.”

  “Payment for what?” Zak says.

  “Whatever she wants: a fortune, a wish?” She shrugs. “She’s a regular. She must have heard that Gran is back after you went to the hotel and told Karen and Lyndsay.”

  “How long will they be in there?” I ask.

  Quinn shrugs again. “About an hour, usually. Probably longer, as she hasn’t been for a while.”

  I clap my hands. “I fancy scrambled eggs for breakfast. Zak, can you get the kitchen fire going?”

  Quinn hands him the eggs. As soon as he’s gone, I smile at Quinn. “An hour? That gives us some time.”

  “For what?”

  “To search Gran’s bedroom, obviously. You promised to help find my inheritance; let’s go upstairs while Gran is busy. Come on.”

  I peer into the hall; the door to Gran’s reading room is safely shut. Then I gesture for Quinn to follow me up the stairs.

  I step into Gran’s room, but Quinn pauses in the doorway.

  “Don’t just stand there; help me.”

  I’ve been through this room before, but then I didn’t know what I was looking for. Now, I do: the Book of Lies.

  I start opening drawers, rifling through, and feel underneath each drawer in case a book is hidden there, taped to the wood. Quinn walks across slowly, stands next to me.

  Does she know? “It’d help if we knew what we are searching for,” I say, looking closely at Quinn. Is she keeping anything from me? “Do you know what it is?”

  She sighs. “It might be a book.” A door opens below.

  Footsteps start up the stairs, careful and slow: it’s Gran. We exchange a look.

  “It hasn’t been even close to an hour,” I say.

  “The bed,” Quinn whispers. “We’re changing the sheets.”

  In a swoop she has the bedding off and new sheets out of a drawer. I rush to help her as the door opens.

  Gran stands there, takes in what we are doing.

  Quinn’s face is flushed. “I thought you’d be longer,” she says. “Just sorting this out for you.”

  Gran’s face is thunder. “I’ve heard some things. Things that disturb me greatly.”

  “Oh? What about?” I say.

  “Apparently for the first time in many years, an old resident returned for a visit. He was at Two Bridges yesterday. I don’t suppose you know anything about that?”

  “Of course not. Who was it?” I say, answering quickly to stop Quinn from speaking. With Quinn, there is no knowing what she might say.

  “I think you do,” Gran says.

  “Our father,” Quinn says softly, not catching my keep quiet look.

  “Yes. That Hamley boy,” Gran says, almost spitting out the name. “But that’s not all. He stumbled out for a walk last night after too many pints. His car is still at the hotel, and no one knows what happened to him. A search is being organized. What will they find?”

  Quinn’s face is pale, pained.

  “He’s probably sleeping it off someplace,” I say, and shrug, face carefully blank, even though I’m shaken. What will they find?

  “There are also reports of livestock being savaged, and a few walkers who were camping out on the moors have been reported missing. Search and Rescue have been out looking for them. The superstitious are saying that the hunt has been unleashed.” Gran holds out her hands. “Come here,” she says.

  Quinn walks to her slowly. I want to ignore Gran’s command, but again there is this compulsion inside to do as she says, and the more I resist, the stronger it gets. I shrug. What does it matter? I follow, and stand next to Quinn. Gran takes Quinn’s left hand, my right one, and holds them in hers. Her fingers are hard, bony. Her eyes are fierce as she looks first into mine, then Quinn’s.

  She lets go of our hands and slumps down into herself. “Please, for your own sakes, listen to me. Don’t access the darkness again. Its power grows. If you can’t control it, it will control you.”

  Later, the sky is darkening, the wind picking up. Dartmoor is like the storm capital of the world. Zak and I wander outside to stretch our legs and check the weather.

  I cling to his hand. No matter how real the hunt had seemed at the time, I’d still been freaked by Gran’s confirmation that Hamley is missing, and those campers.

  The hunt really happened. Those people really died.

  What am I? Panic is twisting my
gut; my heart is racing with fear, revulsion, and—​You are strong. Strong and powerful. Embrace what you are; be strong now. Protect yourself.

  The panic eases. My heart rate slows.

  Whatever I am, no one must find out. Someone else must be to blame.

  “Piper, what’s wrong?”

  “Zak, I’m scared.”

  He slips an arm around my shoulders. “Don’t worry, Piper. I’ll protect you from anything Mother Nature throws at us.”

  “Not of the weather, doofus.”

  “What, then?”

  “Gran’s freaked me out. She told Quinn and me that Will Hamley is missing from the hotel.” I relay what she said. “And she gave all these dire warnings about not accessing the darkness. That if we do, it can control us.” I pretend to shiver.

  “It’s just superstitious weirdness. Don’t let her get to you.”

  “It’s not just that. It’s Quinn. She looks like she didn’t sleep all night, and she had this strange look about her. She wouldn’t meet my eyes, or Gran’s. It’s like she’s hiding something.”

  Zak frowns, shakes his head.

  “You know something. What is it? You must tell me.”

  “There was this weird thing that happened when we went for the coal. We were bringing it back, and Quinn suddenly stopped. Put the barrow down, went off the path. I followed her, and . . .”

  “And what?”

  “There were these sheep. Dead, and in a right state. They’d been savaged by some animals, I guess. Though I don’t know what could be big enough to do that.”

  “And she just went straight to them?”

  “Yes.”

  I shudder, real shock shaking me to the core. “How did she know where they were?” I say, without meaning to say the words out loud. It was my hunt; how did Quinn know where to go? Did she witness the hunt? She must have. How or why she traveled along, I don’t know—​is it because of the tie between us that Gran spoke of?